Demonstration of homoeologies between human and lemur chromosomes by chromosome painting.

Human-specific probes for chromosomes 3, 7, 9, 14, 19, and 21 were used to paint chromosomes of three lemur species: Eulemur fulvus mayottensis, E. macaco macaco, and Lemur catta. Chromosomes 1 and 3 of E. f. mayottensis are homoeologous to human chromosomes 3, 9, 14, and 21, as previously suggested by chromosome banding. Probes for human chromosomes 7 and 19 produced unexpectedly strong signals in the centromeric regions of all lemur chromosomes, suggesting that sequences homologous to nonrepeated sequences of the human genome have been amplified during the formation of constitutive heterochromatin in lemurs.