The construction of chromosome maps

Abstract

The accuracy with which a chromosome map may be constructed depends upon several conditions. (1) The mutant characters employed should be carefully restricted to those cleanly separable both from the wild type and from each other, and whose viability is practically the same as that of the wild type. (2) Mutants should be selected whose loci are properly spaced—not so close together that the error of random sampling is excessive, nor so far apart that double crossing over occurs between them. (3) When the amount of double crossing over between two distant loci is accurately known, data involving them can be used by making the appropriate correction. (4) The data must be obtained under uniform conditions, special attention being paid to the age of the parents, constancy and suitability of temperature, and to freedom from genetic modifiers of crossing over. (5) Any experiment involving more than two loci should figure only once in the calculation of each particular region of the chromosome. (6) Data for each region should be adequate in amount as judged by the laws of probability. (7) If slightly different positions are indicated by two or more independent experiments, then a mean position should be calculated in accordance with the amount and value of the different sets of data. (8) The framework of the map having been constructed on the basis of the most significant loci, each remaining locus is interpolated as accurately as the amount and reliability of data permit.