[The evolution and application of microsatellites].
Microsatellites,simple sequence repeats (SSR),are abundant and distributed throughout the eukaryote genome. The contents of microsatellites are variant in different creatures. There are also different types of microsatellites, which are dominant in different creatures. One of the most noticeable characters of microsatellites is that they are easy to expand during DNA replication. It is thought to attribute to DNA slippage. This kind of mutation is affected by many factors. It is guessed that microsatellites come from pro-microsatellites, while the pro-microsatellites origin from random point mutations. The length of microsatellites can be maintained under relative conservative ranges during species evolution. As they are abundant, codominatnt,distributed over the euchromatic part of the genome, and have the character of highly polimorphic, microsatellites are useful tools for gene mapping, clinical diagnosis and predicting, paternity or pedigree analysis, evolution study, and marker-assisted breeding.
Luo
Wen-Yong
WY
The Key Laboratory of Gene Engineering of Ministry of Education, Zhongshan University, Guangzhou 510275, China. wenyongluo@yahoo.com
Hu
Jun
J
Li
Xiao-Fang
XF