Cytogenetic studies in three diploid species of Andropogon (Andropogoneae), section Leptopogon

Abstract Karyotypes can provide a relevant information about relationships and evolutionary origin among species of the Andropogon genus. This paper presents the karyotype, C+ and DAPI/CMA3 banding and DNA content of three diploid (2n=20) species belonging to section Leptopogon: A. selloanus, A. macrothrix and A. gyrans. Karyotypes of the three diploid species are symmetrical. We propose a karyotype formulae (18m + 2sm) for each of them. The three species show a pair of metacentric chromosomes with a terminal secondary constriction on short arms. Fluorochrome banding revealed different constitutive heterochromatin patterns and CMA3+/DAPI¬ terminal bands related to the nucleolar organizer region in each species. Nuclear DNA content was estimated by flow cytometry ranged from 2.22 to 2.61 pg. FISH technique revealed that these three species have two 45S rDNA loci at the distal ends of the short arms of two metacentric chromosomes. We compare the genomes of the diploids A. selloanus, A. macrothrix and A. gyrans, and the triploid A. ternatus using GISH. These technique allowed us to confirm the hypotheses that the A. selloanus, A. macrothrix and A. gyrans constitute a homogeneous group that share a common S genome that comprises just one of the genomes in the triploid A. ternatus.