Description

The chromosome band track represents the approximate location of bands seen on Giemsa-stained chromosomes. Chromosomes are displayed in the browser with the short arm first. Cytologically identified bands on the chromosome are numbered outward from the centromere on the short (p) and long (q) arms. At low resolution, bands are classified using the nomenclature [chromosome][arm][band], where band is a single digit. Examples of bands on chromosome 3 include 3p2, 3p1, cen, 3q1, and 3q2. At a finer resolution, some of the bands are subdivided into sub-bands, adding a second digit to the band number, e.g. 3p26. This resolution produces about 500 bands. A final subdivision into a total of 862 sub-bands is made by adding a period and another digit to the band, resulting in 3p26.3, 3p26.2, etc.

Methods

Chromosome band information was downloaded from NCBI using the ideogram.gz file for the respective assembly. These data were then transformed into our visualization format. See our assembly creation documentation for the organism of interest to see the specific steps taken to transform these data. Band lengths are typically estimated based on FISH or other molecular markers interpreted via microscopy.

For some of our older assemblies, greater than 10 years old, the tracks were created as detailed below and in Furey and Haussler, 2003.

Barbara Trask, Vivian Cheung, Norma Nowak and others in the BAC Resource Consortium used fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) to determine a cytogenetic location for large genomic clones on the chromosomes. The results from these experiments are the primary source of information used in estimating the chromosome band locations. For more information about the process, see the paper, Cheung, et al., 2001. and the accompanying web site, Human BAC Resource.

BAC clone placements in the human sequence are determined at UCSC using a combination of full BAC clone sequence, BAC end sequence, and STS marker information.

Credits

We would like to thank all the labs that have contributed to this resource:

• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC)
• National Cancer Institute (NCI)
• Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI)
• The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (SC)
• Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC)
• Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
• UC San Francisco Cancer Center (UCSF)

References

Cheung VG, Nowak N, Jang W, Kirsch IR, Zhao S, Chen XN, Furey TS, Kim UJ, Kuo WL, Olivier M et al. Integration of cytogenetic landmarks into the draft sequence of the human genome. Nature. 2001 Feb 15;409(6822):953-8. PMID: 11237021

Furey TS, Haussler D. Integration of the cytogenetic map with the draft human genome sequence. Hum Mol Genet. 2003 May 1;12(9):1037-44. PMID: 12700172