Development of arm-specific and subtelomeric region-specific painting probes for Chinese hamster chromosomes and their utility in chromosome identification of Chinese hamster cell lines.

Arm-specific and subtelomeric region-specific painting probes for Chinese hamster chromosomes have been generated by microdissection and use of the degenerate oligonucleotide-primed polymerase chain reaction (DOP-PCR). Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analyses using these probes demonstrated their specificity. These probes painted every chromosome arm and a total of 15 subtelomeric regions, namely, both ends of chromosomes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 and one end of chromosome arms 5q, 6q, 7q, 9p, and Xp. Many cryptic chromosomal rearrangements in the CHO-9 and V79 cell lines that were not detectable with whole chromosome paints could be recognized when these newly developed probes were used.