Cytogenetic bands, also known as cytobands, represent the approximate location of bands seen on Giemsa-stained chromosomes. Identified bands on the chromosome are numbered outward from the centromere on the short (p) and long (q) arms. At low resolution, bands are classified using the nomenclature chromosome + arm+ band, where band is a single digit. For example, bands on Chromosome 3 include 3p2, 3p1, cen, 3q1, 3q2, etc. At a finer resolution, some of the bands are subdivided into sub-bands, adding a second digit to the band number (e.g., 3p26).

Note

See NCBI's Cytogenetic Bands page for more information.

To see the detailed information, click a band on the cytoband track as shown below.

Select Karyotype

A window similar to the following will be displayed.

Cytoband Details Window

Click the Zoom to region button to open the associated map and zoom in on this cytoband as shown below.

Zoom to Region Example

To clear your selection right-click on the region and select Clear Selected Elements from the right-click menu.

Clear Selected Elements

Or click the Select to region button to open the associated map, zoom in on this cytoband, and select the region as shown below.

Select Region Example

Click the arrow to open a horizontal view. (See Horizontal View for more information.) To clear your selected region right-click on the arrow and select Clear Region Selection from the right-click menu.

Clear Region Selection

Click the Close button to close the Cytoband Details window. The fields displayed by the Cytoband Details window are described below.

Top Panel

Marker ID

This ID uniquely identifies the marker in the database. Markers, especially from different authors, can have identical names, but the MARKER_ID is guaranteed to be unique.

Organism

The selected species.

Name

The name of the selected band.

Map Set

The selected map set.

Giemsa Stain

The Giemsa stain results, which can be Giemsa negative bands (gneg), Giemsa negative bands (gpos50, gpos75, gpos25, and gpos100), centromeric regions (acen), variable-length regions (gvar), or tightly-constricted regions (stalk).

Map

The selected map; typically, the chromosome map.

Location Panel

Chromosome

The selected chromosome number.

Arm

The chromosome arm, starting position in the sequence, and ending position of the sequence.

Band

The cytogenetic band.

Section

The cytogenetic section.

SubBand

The cytogenetic sub-band (if any).

SubSubBand

The cytogenetic sub- sub-band (if any).