Question

Cells were harvested from a patient's blood, cultured to obtain chromosomes in metaphase, fixed onto a slide, treated with trypsin and then stained with Giemsa. The resulting banding pattern is called?

1) Karyotype
2) Phenotype
3) Genotype
4) Allele

Answer 1

The banding pattern obtained from staining cultured cells with Giemsa and arranging them on slides is called a karyotype, which shows the detailed structure of an individual's chromosomes.

Step-by-step explanation:

The resulting banding pattern created when cells harvested from a patient's blood are cultured, chromosomes are fixed onto a slide, treated with trypsin, and then stained with Giemsa is called a karyotype. The Giemsa stain results in a distinct pattern of bands that are reproducible and accessible to a geneticist for analysis. This process, used in cytogenetics, allows the observation of an individual's chromosomes which provides crucial information such as the length, banding pattern, and centromere position of each chromosome. After staining, geneticists use microscopy and digital images to manually arrange the chromosomes into the classic depiction of the karyotype, aligning homologous pairs in numerical order from longest to shortest.