Meiotic segregation of a 21;22 Robertsonian translocation.

In-vitro fertilization of hamster oocytes with human spermatozoa has been used to study heterozygotes for structural chromosome abnormalities. To date only four men heterozygous for Robertsonian translocations have been examined. In this study, 150 sperm chromosome complements from a 21;22 translocation were investigated. There was no evidence of an interchromosomal effect since the frequency of abnormalities unrelated to the translocation was within the range of normal donors. The frequency of unbalanced complements was 3.4%, which is similar to other Robertsonian translocations. As expected, an equivalent number of normal (n = 74) and balanced (n = 70) karyotypes was observed.