Giemsa banding
Giemsa staining of acid-denatured
chromosomes reveals characteristic banding patterns that can be used
to identify individual chromosomes. The G-banding pattern of human
chromosomes links classical cytogenetics to genomics by assigning each
gene to a particular band. Darkly-staining bands are described as heterochromatic, and correlate to
genetically inactive chromosomal regions; lightly-staining areas are euchromatic and are associated with
active regions.