Abstract
Somatic cell genetics is a field which encompasses a number of parasexual techniques that can be used to transfer genetic information from one mammalian cell to another. These techniques include somatic cell hybridization (Ruddle and Creagan, 1975), microcell-mediated chromosome transfer (Fournier and Ruddle, 1977a), chromosome-mediated gene transfer (McBride and Ozer, 1973), and DNA-mediated gene transfer (Wigler et al., 1978). The distinguishing features of each approach are (a) the form in which donor genetic material is presented to recipient cells, and (b) the fraction of the donor genome ultimately retained by the cells. Microcell-mediated chromosome transfer occupies a unique position in this hierarchy: although only a fraction of the donor genome is transferred to the recipients, the introduced genetic material is retained as intact chromosomes. Thus, karyo-typically simple clones can be constructed which contain only one or a few introduced chromosomes. Since the transferred genetic material can be identified using cytogenetic tests, microcell hybrids constitute powerful gene mapping tools.
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