W-derived BAC probes as a new tool for identification of the W chromosome and its aberrations in Bombyx mori

We isolated four W chromosome-derived bacterial artificial chromosome (W-BAC) clones from Bombyx mori BAC libraries by the polymerase chain reaction and used them as probes for fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) on chromosome preparations from B. mori females. All four W-BAC probes surprisingly highlighted the whole wild-type W sex chromosome and also identified the entire original W-chromosomal region in W chromosome-autosome translocation mutants. This is the first successful identification of a single chromosome by means of BAC-FISH in species with holokinetic chromosomes. Genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) by using female-derived genomic probes highlighted the W chromosome in a similar chromosome-painting manner. Besides the W, hybridization signals of W-BAC probes also occurred in telomeric and/or subtelomeric regions of the autosomes. These signals coincided well with those of female genomic probes except one additional GISH signal that was observed in a large heterochromatin block of one autosome pair. Our results support the opinion that the B. mori W chromosome accumulated transposable elements and other repetitive sequences that also occur, but scattered, elsewhere in the respective genome.