Chromosome Studies on Polyploid Cell Strains of Chinese Hamster I: 4x Cell Strains

SUMMARY

We have studied the evolution of the karyotype of 6 tetraploid strains of Chinese hamster induced with colchicine. All six strains have lost with time a certain number of chromosomes, and each one of them has become stabilised on an average number, characteristic for each strain. The analysis of the karyotype of these six strains showed that different types of chromosomes behave in different ways; in particular a decrease was observed in the large and medium m chromosomes and in the st chromosomes; the t chromosomes, the small m chromosomes and the minute chromosomes either remained unchanged with time or increased. It was also observed that while the large and medium m chromosomes are generally in a triploid number the other vary considerably in number from cell to cell. This causes a large variability of the karyotype of different cell populations. In these populations we could not observe the presence of a « stemline » in the classical meaning of this term.