microsatellite
Sign in to saveA microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA that consists of a particular sequence of base pairs repeated a large number of times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. They have a higher mutation rate than other areas of DNA leading to high genetic diversity. Microsatellites are often referred to as short tandem repeats (STRs) by forensic geneticists and in genetic genealogy, or as simple sequence repeats (SSRs) by plant geneticists.
Article
25 sectionsContents
- History
- Structures, locations, and functions
- Mutation mechanisms and mutation rates
- Microsatellite mutation rates
- Biological effects of microsatellite mutations
- Effects on proteins
- Effects on gene regulation
- Effects within introns
- Effects within transposons
- Applications
- Cancer diagnosis
- Forensic and medical fingerprinting
- Kinship analysis (paternity testing)
- Genetic linkage analysis
- Population genetics
- Plant breeding
- Analysis
- Amplification
- Design of microsatellite primers
- ISSR-PCR
- Limitations
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA that consists of a particular sequence of base pairs repeated a large number of times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. They have a higher mutation rate than other areas of DNA leading to high genetic diversity. Microsatellites are often referred to as short tandem repeats (STRs) by forensic geneticists and in genetic genealogy, or as simple sequence repeats (SSRs) by plant geneticists.
Microsatellites and their longer cousins, the minisatellites, together are classified as VNTR (variable number of tandem repeats) DNA. The name "satellite" DNA refers to the early observation that centrifugation of genomic DNA in a test tube separates a prominent layer of bulk DNA from accompanying "satellite" layers of repetitive DNA.