Table 1.
Contributing laboratories and descriptive features of chromosome painting techniques.
| Country | Laboratory* | Chromosomes painted† | Number of colors with no counterstain | Fraction of exchanges detected‡ | Average number of cell equivalents | Range of cell equivalents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | BfS | 2,4,8 | 1 | 0.303 | 773 | 608–1184 |
| Canada | Health and Welfare | 2,3,4 | 3 | 0.353 | 420 | 346–726 |
| Russia | CRIRR | 1,4,12 (primarily) | 1 | 0.302 | 385 | 147–1042 |
| Germany | GSF | 1,4,12 | 1 | 0.302 | 548 | 188–906 |
| United Kingdom | HPA | 2,3,5 | 1 | 0.322 | 935 | 629–1288 |
| France | IRSN | 2,4,12 | 3 | 0.321 | 479 | 167–1072 |
| Czech Republic | LGE | 1,4 | 2 | 0.253 | 253 | 246–321 |
| United States | LLNL (n=282) | 1,2,4† | 1 | 0.343 | 826 | 216–1944 |
| United States | LLNL (n=512) | 1,2,4 & 3,5,6 | 2 | 0.559 | 996 | 203–2259 |
| The Netherlands | LUMC | 1,4,8 | 3 | 0.33 | 433 | 164–662 |
| United States | ORAU | 1,2,4 | 1 | 0.343 | 544 | 380–1279 |
| Japan and China | NIRS & NIRP & CCDCP | 1,2,4 | 1 | 0.343 | 1536 | 224–7437 |
| Japan | RERF | 1,2,4 | 1 | 0.343 | 172 | 144–206 |
| Korea | SNU | 1,4 | 2 | 0.253 | 127 | 127–127 |
| Finland | STUK | 1,2,4 | 1 | 0.343 | 642 | 502–1199 |
| Spain | UAB | 1,4,11 | 1 | 0.302 | 444 | 358–530 |
| United Kingdom | WRI | 1,3,4 (primarily) | 1 | 0.328 | 386 | 321–656 |
BfS: Federal Office for Radiation Protection; CRIRR: Central Research Institute of Roentgenology and Radiology; GSF: National Research Center for Environment and Health, Institute of Radiobiology; HPA: Health Protection Agency, Radiation Protection Division (formerly the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB)); IRSN: Institut de Radioprotection et Sûreté Nucléaire; LGE: Laboratory of Genetic Ecotoxicology; LLNL: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; LUMC: Leiden University Medical Centre; NIRS: National Institute of Radiological Sciences; NIRP, CCDCP: National Institute for Radiological Protection, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; ORAU: Oak Ridge Associated Universities; RERF: Radiation Effects Research Foundation; SNU: Seoul National University; STUK: Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority; UAB: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona; WRI: Westlakes Research Institute.
Some laboratories reported painting other chromosomes or varying the number of colors: CRIRR had 7 subjects (16%), LLNL had 14 subjects (5%), and WRI had 23 subjects (17%) for which the chromosome painting descriptions differed slightly from the table. These differences were included in the calculations for the aggregated data.
The fraction of exchanges detected was calculated using equations appropriate for one- to three-color paints [31] and was based on the DNA content of the painted chromosomes [32]. The proportion of genome coverage differs slightly for males and females due to the larger size of the X compared to the Y chromosome and some laboratories adjust for these gender differences in their calculations. For ease of presentation we show here the proportion for men, which is minimally larger than for women, however the calculations for the aggregated data were performed using gender-specific equations as described in the text.