Two types of y chromosome in a brazilian cattle breed

Lymphocyte cultures from 56 males of the Brazilian Ibagé breed, formed by crosses between Bos indicus and Bos taurus, reveal the co-existence of the acrocentric and submetacentric Y characteristic of Asian and European catde respectively. The G and C bands support the hypothesis put forward previously that these two types of Y originated through a pericentric inversion. In one animal, one of the large autosomes (probably no. 6) was heteromorphic for the centromeric heterochromatin. The C bands of the Y in cattle are unusual; apparently contradictory results obtained by previous authors may be due to a peculiar sequence and composition of the nucleotides in the DNA of this chromosome in this organism. © 1980 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.