No statistical association between fragile sites and constitutional chromosome breakpoints

Ten thousand four hundred ninety-two constitutional breakpoints available from the cytogenetic literature were analyzed for their coincidence with known fragile sites (FS) at 303-band resolution. In this analysis we have taken into account the stochastic connections of some features of chromosome bands with both the presence of FS and constitutional breakage. Our results suggest that there is no particular association between FS and constitutional chromosome rearrangements.