An organized visual profile of the chromosomes in the nucleus of a body cell of an organism. Karyotypes are prepared using cells in the metaphase stage of cell division, when chromosomal strands have coiled together and duplicated, rendering them easily visible under a microscope after staining. Photomicrographs of the stained chromosomes are thenarranged in a standard format according to size, the relative position ofthe centromere, and other criteria. The normal human karyotype consists of 46 chromosomes.
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