SEX CHROMATIN PATTERN IN SEMINIFEROUS TUBULE DYSGENESIS AND OTHER TESTICULAR DISORDERS: RELATIONSHIP TO TRUE HERMAPHRODISM AND TO KLINEFELTER'S SYNDROME, WITH A REVIEW OF GONADAL ONTOGENESIS*†

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Abstract
THE discovery by Ban and his associates of a sex difference in the interphase nuclei of somatic cells in certain mammals (2–6), including primates, has provided a long-needed practical method for assessing the sex chromosome constitution. Since this technique was first applied in man in 1953 (7), modifications (8–11) and several new developments have been reported (12–17). In the investigation of anomalies of sex development, clinical application of Barr's method has produced important results (7, 18–23). Apart from its ancillary rôle in diagnosis, cytologic sexing, or the determination of sex by chromatin pattern, has contributed significantly to our understanding of the disordered development in these afflictions (23, 24). Recently, chromosomal sex has been studied in testicular disorders. Nelson (25), Plunkett and Ban (26, 27), and Bradbury, Bunge and Boccabella (28) were the first to describe a female chromatin pattern in apparent males with Klinefelter's syndrome. Subsequently, this finding has been reported by the authors and Barr (1), and by others (29–31).