Table 3.

Organization of pericentric heterochromatin in early and late 2-cell embryos

	No. of NPBs	No. of NPBs not associated with pericentromeric signals	No. of NPBs associated with pericentromeric rims	No. of NPBs associated with condensed pericentromeric patches	No. of “free” cytoplasmic pericentromeric patches
early 2-cell (n = 20)	13.75 ± 3.78	4.95 ± 1.76 (37%) b	8.10 ± 3.26 (58%) a	0.7 ± 0.57 (5%) a	2.7 ± 1.7 b
late 2-cell (n = 19)	11.78 ± 3.47	3.47 ± 1.54 (29.6%) b’	2.67 ± 1.64 (24.16%) a’	4.83 ± 2.4 (37.6%) a’	4.05 ± 2 b’

Values with superscripts a and a’ are significantly different at p < 0.0001.

Values with superscripts b and b’ differ at p = 0.02.