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Brachypodium distachyon provides a particularly appealing object for molecular cytogenetic analysis due to its compact genome and low repetitive DNA content, as well as low (x = 5) basic number of chromosomes easily identifiable on the basis of their morphometric features. Some of these features, such as genome compactness, are shared by the other members of the genus, thus making them amenable for comparative cytogenetic mapping. Cytogenetic infrastructure established for B. distachyon was initially based on fluorescence in situ hybridization with various tandemly repeated sequences as probes. The molecular cytogenetic studies advanced greatly with the development of B. distachyon large DNA insert genomic libraries. These resources coupled with the access to the fully sequenced genome of B. distachyon enabled chromosome painting in monocots for the first time. This pioneering work was subsequently extended to other Brachypodium species, allowing insight into grass karyotype evolution. In this protocol we describe the methods of making somatic and meiotic chromosome preparations, probe labeling, FISH with BAC clones, a strategy for chromosome barcoding and chromosome painting in B. distachyon, and comparative chromosome painting in the other Brachypodium species.

This paper presents ChroTeMo, a tool for chromosome territory modelling, accompanied by ChroTeVi-a chromosome territory visualisation software that uses the data obtained by ChroTeMo. These tools have been developed in order to complement the molecular cytogenetic research of interphase nucleus structure in a model grass Brachypodium distachyon. Although the modelling tool has been initially created for one particular species, it has universal application. The proposed version of ChroTeMo allows for generating a model of chromosome territory distribution in any given plant or animal species after setting the initial, species-specific parameters. ChroTeMo has been developed as a fully probabilistic modeller. Due to this feature, the comparison between the experimental data on the structure of a nucleus and the results obtained from ChroTeMo can indicate whether the distribution of chromosomes inside a nucleus is also fully probabilistic or is subjected to certain non-random patterns. The presented tools have been written in Python, so they are multiplatform, portable and easy to read. Moreover, if necessary they can be further developed by users writing their portions of code. The source code, documentation, and wiki, as well as the issue tracker and the list of related articles that use ChroTeMo and ChroTeVi, are accessible in a public repository at Github under GPL 3.0 license.