Methodologies Applied to Domestic Animal Chromosomes

Chromosomes of domestic animals have attracted the attention of both scientists and breeders because chromosomal abnormalities have been strictly correlated with the reduced fertility in cattle carrying rob(1;29) (1 ). Domestic animal cytogenetics has expanded noticeably, extending its interest not only to clinical cytogenetics but also to evolutionary and, more recently, molecular cytogenetics (gene mapping). Chromosomes of domestic animals, especially those of bovids, are very difficult to study because all autosomes of cattle, goats, and dogs, most of them from sheep and river buffalo, and many of them from horses are acrocentric with a decreasing, but similar, size.