It has been reported that endosperm undergoes programmed cell death (PCD) during maize kernel development.Both bz1 (bronze ) and bz2 are anthocyanin biosynthetic genes,and related to development of aleuronic layer of maize seeds.Tyramide signal amplification fluorescence in situ hybridization (TSA FISH) is a novel and high sensitive FISH technique,which is suitable for routine application in plant cytogenetic research.Using this technique,we physically mapped the bz1 gene onto the short arm of chromosome 9 and the long arm of chromosome 1;the percentage distances from centromere to hybridization site were 40.2,75.4 respectively,and the bz2 onto the long arm of chromosome 1 and the short arm of chromosome 5;the percentage distances from centromere to hybridization site were 21.6,15.3 separately.The TSA FISH techniques of small low copy DNA sequences for plants are discussed.
