De Vita R, Cavallo D, Eleuteri P, Dell'Omo G
Environmental Biomedicine Division, ENEA Casaccia, Rome, Italy.
Cytometry. 1994 Aug 1;16(4):346-50. doi: 10.1002/cyto.990160409.
A high interspecific karyotype variability has been evidenced in birds especially in Falconiformes and Strigiformes. Avian cytogenetic analysis, conventionally used for this study, presents several difficulties. We used flow cytometric analysis in order to obtain further information on the DNA patterns of different species of birds belonging to the above-mentioned orders. Our study was performed on blood samples while chicken erythrocytes and human lymphocytes, with known cytometric DNA content, were used as reference cells. The blood samples of the birds under study were stained, simultaneously to the reference cell, with a lysis-staining buffer containing propidium iodide. The nuclear DNA content of the bird samples was calculated as DNA index in relation to reference cells, and was expressed as nuclear DNA mass in picograms (pg) with respect to the standard value of 7.0 pg per human lymphocyte nucleus. The results obtained showed an interspecific variability of DNA content and evidenced the usefulness of FCM analysis as a rapid and easy tool for studying the DNA pattern of different species of birds. Moreover, our results have confirmed and extended the possibility of sex identification in species of birds characterized by sexual monomorphism by evaluating the small DNA content difference which exists between males and females.
鸟类尤其是隼形目和鸮形目之间的核型种间变异性已得到证实。传统上用于这项研究的鸟类细胞遗传学分析存在一些困难。我们使用流式细胞术分析，以便获得关于上述目不同鸟类物种DNA模式的更多信息。我们的研究是对血液样本进行的，同时使用已知细胞计量DNA含量的鸡红细胞和人淋巴细胞作为参照细胞。在所研究鸟类的血液样本与参照细胞同时用含有碘化丙啶的裂解染色缓冲液进行染色。鸟类样本的核DNA含量以相对于参照细胞的DNA指数计算，并以皮克（pg）为单位表示为核DNA质量，相对于每个人淋巴细胞核7.0 pg的标准值。所获得的结果显示了DNA含量的种间变异性，并证明了流式细胞术分析作为研究不同鸟类物种DNA模式的一种快速且简便工具的有用性。此外，我们的结果通过评估雄性和雌性之间存在的微小DNA含量差异，证实并扩展了在具有性单态性特征的鸟类物种中进行性别鉴定的可能性。
