Cytogenetic studies in three octopods, Octopus minor, Amphioctopus fangsiao, and Cistopus chinensis from the coast of China

Abstract

To provide markers to identify chromosomes in the genome of octopods, chromosomes of three octopus species were subjected to NOR/C-banding. In addition, we examined their genome size (C value) to submit it to the Animal Genome Size Database. Silver staining revealed that the number of Ag-nucleoli was 2 (Octopus minor (Sasaki, 1920)), 2 (Amphioctopus fangsiao (d'Orbigny, 1839)) and 1 (Cistopus chinensis Zheng et al., 2012), respectively, and the number of Ag-nucleoli visible was the same as that of Ag-NORs on metaphase plates in the same species. In all analyzed metaphases, Ag-NORs were mainly located terminally on the long arms of chromosomes 3 (3rd) of O. minor and on the short arms of chromosomes 4 (4th) of A. fangsiao, whereas only one of the chromosomes 23 (23rd) was found Ag-NORs of C. chinensis. Cbands were localized predominantly in the centromeric regions of chromosomes in the three species, while other conspicuous stable C-bands were observed in terminal regions, including the Ag-NORs. That means these three chromosome pairs (3rd, 4th and 23rd) could be considered species-specific cytogenetic markers. The mean C values of O. minor, A. fangsiao and C. chinensis were 7.81±0.39 pg (0.070 pg per unit length), 8.31±0.18 pg (0.068 pg per unit length) and 5.29±0.10 pg (0.038 pg per unit length), respectively, and results showed that C values of the three species were not proportional to the relative length of the chromosomes. These cytogenetic characteristics will provide more theoretical foundation for further researches on chromosome evolution in octopods.