title: Stabilization of microsatellite sequences by variant repeats in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
abstract: We examined the effect of a single variant repeat on the stability of a 51-base pair (bp) microsatellite (poly GT). We found that the insertion stabilizes the microsatellite about fivefold in wild-type strains. The stabilizing effect of the variant base was also observed in strains with mutations in the DNA mismatch repair genes pms1, msh2 and msh3, indicating that this effect does not require a functional DNA mismatch repair system. Most of the microsatellite alterations in the pms1, msh2 and msh3 strains were additions or deletions of single GT repeats, but about half of the alterations in the wild-type and msh6 strains were large (> 8 bp) deletions or additions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27599-3280, USA. tompetes@e mail.unc.edu
authors.forename: T D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Petes
authors.forename: P W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Greenwell
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dominska
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D004260:DNA Repair / Q000235:genetics; D004261:DNA Replication / Q000235:genetics; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000235:genetics; D004259:DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase / Q000378:metabolism; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics; D011089:Polydeoxyribonucleotides / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017384:Sequence Deletion / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal; D011089:Polydeoxyribonucleotides; C017650:polydeoxy(guanine-thymine) nucleotide; D004259:DNA-Directed DNA Polymerase