Prolongation of replication time after doublings of the DNA content of polytene chromosome bands of Chironomus.

Using 3H-thymidine autoradiography, labeling frequency of homologous asynapsed chromosome bands of the hybrid of Chironomus th. thummi and Chironomus th. piger has been studied. In a number of these bands the DNA content of the thummi bands if 2, 4, 8 or 16 times as large as that of the homologous piger bands (Keyl, 1965). Those bands of CH. TH. thummi which show one doubling of their DNA content in comparison with the homologous piger bands are also labeled two times more frequently than piger. In contrast to this such a correlation between increase of labeling frequency (i.e. prolongation of replication time) and doubling of the DNA content is not observed, when thummi bands have 4, 8 or 16 times more DNA than their homologues in piger. In these cases replication time is also prolonged after each doubling. Duration of DNA synthesis increases linearly but always by a smaller factor as the corresponding DNA content is increased.