Cytogenetic Tools to Study the Biodiversity of Neotropical Fish: From the Classic to the Advent of Cell Culture

Neotropical Ichthyofauna is considered the richest and most diverse in the world. All this biodiversity has attracted attention from researchers from different areas of study, including the cytogenetics. Many cytogenetics studies have search to understand the evolution of macro and micro karyotype structure of these different groups of fish, and classical and molecular cytogenetics techniques have contributed significantly for all knowledge of this karyotypic diversity. Recently, the use of cell cultures as an alternative to obtaining mitotic chromosomes opening up new opportunities to study groups that have not been explored or have not yet been cytogenetically investigated. In this work, we take a chronological overview of the advances of different cytogenetic techniques (“in vivo” and “in vitro” methods to obtain the chromosome, C-banding, the detection of nucleolar organizer regions (Ag-RON), fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) with several repetitive probes and paint chromosome) over the decades and how these techniques helped elucidate questions of the organization and function of the fish genome.