PDF version. berkeleygenomics.org.

This is a linkpost for "Chromosome identification methods"; a few of the initial sections are reproduced here.

Abstract

Chromosome selection is a hypothetical technology that assembles the genome of a new living cell out of whole chromosomes taken from multiple source cells. To do chromosome selection, you need a method for chromosome identification—distinguishing between chromosomes by number, and ideally also by allele content. This article investigates methods for chromosome identification. It seems that existing methods are subject to a tradeoff where they either destroy or damage the chromosomes they measure, or else they fail to confidently identify chromosomes. A paradigm for non-destructive high-confidence chromosome identification is proposed, based on the idea of complementary identification. The idea is to isolate a single chromosome taken from a single cell, destructively identify all the remaining chromosomes from that cell, and thus infer the identity of the preserved chromosome. The overall aim is to eventually develop a non-destructive, low-cost, accurate way to identify single chromosomes, to apply as part of a chromosome selection protocol.