Human chromosome methodology / edited by Jorge J. Yunis.

Date:
1965
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Human chromosome methodology / edited by Jorge J. Yunis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Sex Chromatin Techniques MURRAY L. BARR Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada I. Introduction : 1 II. Historical Sketch 2 III. Morphological Characteristics of the Sex Chromatin 3 IV. Sex Chromatin Techniques 5 A. Buccal Smears : 5 B. Sections of Tissues 8 C. Peripheral Blood Neutrophiles 11 V. Origin of the Sex Chromatin 13 VI. Sex Chromatin Patterns and Sex Chromosome Complexes .... 14 References 16 I. INTRODUCTION The sex chromatin of interphase nuclei has proved a useful marker, in spite of its diminutive size, in several practical and theoretical problems of biology and medicine. It is widely used as a diagnostic aid in errors of sex development, especially in hermaphroditism, Turner's syndrome, and Klinefelter's syndrome. As a companion technique to chromosome analysis, study of the sex chromatin pattern allows one to determine the number of X chromosomes in the complement, according to the rule that the maximum number of sex chromatin masses is one less than the number of X chromosomes. This is a helpful, indeed a crucial, rule in certain chromosome abnormalities, because the X chromosome is almost identical, in size and the more obvious structural characteristics, with autosomes 6 and 7. The sex chomatin test has also been used in a number of studies where an indication of the cells' sex chromosome complex was needed. To cite a few examples, the sex chromatin has been a useful marker in determining the success of homologous tissue transplants when donor and recipient were of unlike sex (Peer, 1958; Woodruff and Lennox, 1959) ; 1 \