© 2008 The Japan Mendel Society Cytologia 73(1): 71–80, 2008 Standardized Karyotype and Idiogram of the Clouded Leopard, Neofelis nebulosa (Carnivora, Felidae) by Conventional Staining, G-banding and High-resolution Staining Technique Alongkoad Tanomtong1,*, Sumpars Khunsook1, Puntivar Keawmad1 and Roungvit Bunjonrat2 1 Genetics Program, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Khon Kaen University, Muang, Khon Kaen 40002, Thailand 2 Genetics Program, Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Phaya-Thai, Bangkok 10300, Thailand Received December 3, 2007; accepted April 3, 2008 Summary A cytogenetic study of the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) in Thailand has been made. Blood sample were taken from 1 male and 1 female. After the standard whole blood lympho- cyte culture in the presence of colchicine, the metaphase spreads were performed on microscopic slides and air-dried. Conventional staining, G-banding and high-resolution staining technique were applied to stain the chromosomes. The results showed that 2n (diploid) of clouded leopard was 38, and the fundamental number (NF) was 74 in the male and female. There are 6 autosome types: A type had 4 large and 2 medium submetacentric chromosomes, B type had 6 large and 2 medium acrocentric chromosomes, C type had 4 large metacentric chromosomes, D type had 8 small sub- metacentric chromosomes, E type had 8 small metacentric chromosomes and F type had 2 small te- locentric chromosomes. A pair of the short arm of chromosome E1 (chromosome pairs 14) showed a clearly observable satellite chromosomes. The X chromosome was medium submetacentric chromo- some and the Y chromosome was the smallest submetacentric chromosome. From the G-banding and high-resolution technique, the number of bands and locations in the clouded leopard was 178 and 222 respectively, and each chromosome pair could be clearly differentiated. We found that chro- mosomes A1, B3, B4, C1, C2, D1, D4, E1, E3, F1 and X-chromosome patterns were according to the domestic cat (Felis catus) chromosomes. Chromosomes A2, A3, D2, D3, E2 and Y-chromosome are similar to those of the domestic cat. These results show the evolutionary relationship between the clouded leopard and domestic cat. The karyotype formula for the male and female clouded leopard ϭ mϩ smϩ aϩ smϩ aϩ mϩ smϩ t ϩ is as follows: 2n(38) L4 L4 L6 M2 M2 S8 S8 S 2 sex chromosomes. Key words Karyotype, Clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), Chromosome. The clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is member of family Felidae. The family has only 9 species of 6 genera in Thailand (Lekagul and McNeely 1977, 1988, Par et al., 2003). The clouded leopard is a medium wild cat that is found from Nepal and Sikkim east to southern China and For- mosa, south through Burma, Thailand and Indochina to Malaya, Borneo and Sumatra. The common characteristics of the clouded leopard are: the most distinctive external feature is the beautiful cloudy pattern of the fur, the large rosettes are variable in color, but always have the posterior bor- der edged in black, with the remaining part of the rosette darker than the ground color. The clouds on and just behind the shoulders are the largest, extending from the back down almost to the belly. There are also scattered black spots of various sizes and shapes, continuing down both legs to the feet. The spots on the midline of the back may form irregular stripes and there are usually longitu- * Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected] 72 A. Tanomtong et al. Cytologia 73(1) dinal stripes on the neck starting just behind the ears. The underparts are lighter. (Lekagul and McNeely 1977, 1988) (Fig. 1). Although cytogenetic studies of the fami- ly Felidae have been reported (Makino and Tateishi 1952, Thuline and Norby 1961, Hsu et al. 1963, Hus and Rearden 1965, Ohno et al. 1962, Matano 1963, Chu et al. 1964, Benirschke and Low 1966, Leyhausen and Tonkin 1968, Sutton 1968, Hard 1968, Wurster and Benirschke 1967, 1968a, 1968b, Wurster 1969, Milosevic et al. 1972, Wurster-Hill 1973, Wurster-Hill and Meritt 1974, Yang et al. 2000, Nie et al. 2002, Keawmad et al. 2007), there are few reports of the cytogenetics of the family Felidae in this species in Thai- land. As the clouded leopard is a highly endan- gered species, several follow-up are of interest Fig. 1. The clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa (Carnivo- for potential contribution to the conservation ra, Felidae). of this species. Materials and methods Blood samples of 1 male and 1 female clouded leopard were collected from Nakhon Ratchasi- ma Zoo, Thailand and then applied for cytogenetic studies by lymphocyte culture of whole blood samples. The culture cells were treated with a colchicine-hypotonic-fixation-air-drying technique followed by conventional staining, G-banding and high-resolution staining techniques with Giem- sa’s (Rooney 2001, Campiranon 2003). Twenty cells of each individual chromosome checks, length measurements, karyotyping and idiograming were accomplished by using a light microscope as previously described (Chaiyasut1989, Keawmad et al. 2007). Results Cytogenetic study of the clouded leopard using lymphocyte revealed that the chromosome number is 2n (diploid)ϭ38 and the fundamental number (NF) is 74 in male and female. The auto- somes of the clouded leopard composed of 6 types: A type had 4 large and 2 medium submetacen- tric chromosomes, B type had 6 large and 2 medium acrocentric chromosomes, C type had 4 large metacentric chromosomes, D type had 8 small submetacentric chromosomes, E type had 8 small metacentric chromosomes and F type had 2 small telocentric chromosomes. A pair of the short arm of chromosome E1 (chromosome pairs 14) showed a clearly observable satellite chromosomes. The X chromosome was medium submetacentric chromosome and the Y chromosome was smallest sub- metacentric chromosome (Figs. 2, 3, 4). The important chromosome marker of the clouded leopard is the asymmetrical karyotype, in which all 4 types of chromosomes are found (metacentric, submetacentric, acrocentric and telocen- tric chromosome). The results of the chromosomal checks on mitotic metaphase cells of the cloud- ed leopard are shown in Tables 1 and 2. The largest and smallest chromosomes show large size dif- ference (approximately 6 fold). The largest chromosome is submetacentric chromosome, while the second largest chromosome is acrocentric chromosome and the Y chromosome is the smallest sub- metacentric chromosome (Figs. 2, 3, 4). The G-banding revealed that the number of G-bands per 2008 Standardized Karyotype and Idiogram of the Clouded Leopard 73 Fig. 2. Metaphase chromosome plates and karyotype of the female (A) and male (B) clouded leopard (Neo- felis nebulosa Griffish, 1821) 2n (diploid)ϭ38 by conventional staining technique, showing satellite chromosomes with nucleolar organizer regions, NORs (arrows). haploid set, which includes autosomes, X and Y chromosomes, is 178 by the conventional tech- nique and 222 by the high-resolution staining technique (Figs. 5, 6). Comparison of chromosome banding pattern between the clouded leopard and the domestic cat (Felis catus) revealed that 11 chromosome pairs show the same pattern (pairs A1, B3, B4, C1, C2, D1, D4, E1, E3, F1 and X chromosome) and 6 chromosome pairs share similarities (pairs A2, A3, D2, D3, E2 and Y chromosome) (Fig. 7). This indicates that there is an evolutionary relation- ship between the clouded leopard and the domestic cat. Fig. 5 shows the idiogram for the clouded leopard from the G-banding technique, while Fig. 6 shows the idiogram from the high-resolution staining technique with landmarks, bands and sub-bands. The karyotype formula for the clouded ϭ mϩ smϩ aϩ smϩ aϩ mϩ smϩ t ϩ leopard is as follows: 2n(38) L4 L4 L6 M2 M2 S8 S8 S 2 sex chromosomes 74 A. Tanomtong et al. Cytologia 73(1) Fig. 3. Metaphase chromosome plates and karyotype of the female (A) and male (B) clouded leopard (Neo- felis nebulosa Griffish, 1821) 2n (diploid)ϭ38 by G-banding technique, showing satellite chromo- somes with nucleolar organizer regions, NORs (arrows). Discussion Cytogenetic study of the clouded leopard using lymphocyte culture revealed that the chromo- some number is 2nϭ38. This result agrees with the previous studies by O’Brien et al. (2006) indi- cating that the Bornean clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa diardi) and mainland clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa nebulosa) has 2nϭ38. This corresponds to 2n for the member of the family Feli- dae according to reports in puma (Felis concolor), Canadian lynx (F. l y n x ), snow leopard (Uncia uncia), jaguarondi (F. yagouaroundi), cheetah (Acinonyx jabatus jabatus), serval (F. serval), fishing cat (F. viverrina), Asian leopard cat (Prionallurus bengalensis), bob cat (Lynx rufus), marbled cat (F. marmorata), European wild cat (F. silvestris), black footed cat (F. nigripes), leopard (Panthera pardus), tiger (P. tigris), domestic cat (F. catus) and ocelot (F. pardalis) (Makino and Tateishi 1952, 2008 Standardized Karyotype and Idiogram of the Clouded Leopard 75 Fig. 4. Prometaphase chromosome plates and karyotype of the female (A) and male (B) clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa Griffish, 1821) 2n (diploid)ϭ38 by high-resolution staining technique, showing satellite chromosomes with nucleolar organizer regions, NORs (arrows). Thuline and Norby 1961, Hsu 1962, Hsu et al. 1963, Hsu and Rearden 1965, Ohno et al. 1962, Matano 1963, Chu et al. 1964, Benirschke and Low 1966, Leyhausen and Tonkin 1968, Sutton 1968, Hard 1968, Wurster and Benirschke 1967, 1968a, 1968b, Wurster 1969, Milosevic et al. 1972, Wurster-Hill 1973, Wurster-Hill and Meritt 1974, Keawmad et al. 2007). However this num- ber differs from the chromosome number of Geoffroy’s (F. g eoffroyi) and Marguay (F. wiedi) which is 2nϭ36 (Hsu 1962, Hsu et al. 1963). The autosomes of the clouded leopard can be separated to 6 types: A type had 4 large and 2 medium submetacentric chromosomes, B type had 6 large and 2 medium acrocentric chromosomes, C type had 4 large metacentric chromosomes, D type had 8 small submetacentric chromosomes, E type had 8 small metacentric chromosomes and F type had 2 small telocentric chromosomes.