title: Replication stalling and DNA microsatellite instability.
abstract: Microsatellites are short, tandemly repeated DNA motifs of 1-6 nucleotides, also termed simple sequence repeats (SRSs) or short tandem repeats (STRs). Collectively, these repeats comprise approximately 3% of the human genome Subramanian et al. (2003), Lander and Lander (2001) [1,2], and represent a large reservoir of loci highly prone to mutations Sun et al. (2012), Ellegren (2004) [3,4] that contribute to human evolution and disease. Microsatellites are known to stall and reverse replication forks in model systems Pelletier et al. (2003), Samadashwily et al. (1997), Kerrest et al. (2009) [5-7], and are hotspots of chromosomal double strand breaks (DSBs). We briefly review the relationship of these repeated sequences to replication stalling and genome instability, and present recent data on the impact of replication stress on DNA fragility at microsatellites in vivo.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gadgil
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barthelemy
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435, USA.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Boonshoft School of Medicine, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435, USA. Electronic address: michael.leffak@wright.edu.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leffak
mesh_terms: D053903:DNA Breaks, Double-Stranded; D004261:DNA Replication; D006801:Humans; D053842:Microsatellite Instability; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats