STUDIES ON SEX CHROMATIN
1966 Volume 57 Issue 7 Pages 651-678
Details
1966 Volume 57 Issue 7 Pages 651-678
1. The staining method of sex chromatin must be simplified and at the same time the picture must be clear and readily observable in order to be accepted as a routine clinical examination, and further it becomes necessary to set a standard or criterion.
i) In the present work a comparative study was made on cases with normal and abnormal sex chromosome constitution using the following methods: Guard's staining method, Feulgen staining method, acetoorcein staining method, Giemsa staining method and hematoxylin and eosin staining method. As a result it was shown that the aceto-orcein staining method satisfied the above described conditions.
ii) Studies were made on 100 cases, each of normal male and female subjects, and on 18 cases of abnormalities of the sex chromosome constitution, with respect to the frequency of appearance of different heterochromatic bodies in the nucleus. As a result the author is now of the opinion that sex chromatin should be limited to heterochromatic bodies of 1μ or thereabouts adjacent to nuclear membrane.
2. In regard to the frequency of sex chromatin abnormalities in mentally defective children and the correlation between sex chromatin and sex chromosome constitution, no detailed reports have been published in Japan.
i) A study was made on 1, 198 cases (male 683, female 515) of mentally defective children in Hokkaido. As a result of the sex chromatin test, 13 male and 2 female cases with sex chromatin abnormalities were found. The percentage of sex chromatin abnormalities in male cases was 1.90% which is twice as high as that in Europe and America.
ii) Studies were also made on the correlation between the sex chromatin and sex chromosome constitution of the screened cases. From the finding in sex chromatin it was shown that it was possible to surmize the sex chromosome constitution. This substantiates the significance of the sex chromatin test as a screening method. In recent years the hypothesis that the maximal number of sex chromatin is equal to the number of X chromosomes substracted by 1 has been set forth by some workers such as Ohno and Lyon. In regard to this the sex chromatin findings in the present work on abnormalities of the sex chromosome constitution substantiates the above theory.
