Spontaneous Endoreduplication, Tetraploidy and Chromosome Breakage in Lymphocyte Cultures from Healthy Subjects

SUMMARY

42,703 metaphases of peripheral lymphocytes from 20 healthy subjects (10 women and 10 men) were examined in order to establish the frequency of endoreduplicated cells and of tetraploid cells without diplochromosomes. Frequencies were found to be 0.016% and 0.112%, respectively. The two sexes did not differ as to the frequency of tetraploid cells, with and without diplochromosomes (about 0.13% in either sex). In a total of 2,135 well spread metaphases examined, 26 cells (i.e. 1.2%) with chromosomal breaks were found. Again, no significant differences between the two sexes were found as to such chromosome abnormalities.