A comparison of the yields of translocations and dicentrics measured using fluorescence in situ hybridization.

Chromosome aberration analysis using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) methods without centromere-specific markers results in the misscoring of a substantial fraction of the dicentrics as translocations; that is, too many translocations and too few dicentrics are scored. Such misscoring has led to considerable confusion in the rapidly emerging literature on FISH-based cytogenetics. Here, we demonstrate that the problem is fully resolved when centromeric probes are used.