A chromosome's protein is a dependent variable of the total metaphase protein.

Chinese hamster metaphases were stained with dansyl chloride to determine protein. Using a microfluorometer, the fluorescence of chromosome number one and the total of the fluorescence of the metaphase were measured. The two measurements were found to be correlated with a coefficient of 0.640, suggesting that protein content in a single chromosome is a dependent variable of the protein content of the respective metaphase.