Mini satellite

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the artificial spacecraft see small satellite .

In genetics, sections of the DNA in the genome that consist of tandem-like repetitions of a short (approx. 12-100 nucleotides long) DNA sequence are referred to as mini-satellites , mini- satellite DNA or VNTRs ( variable number tandem repeats ) . Unlike other satellite DNAs , the number of repetitions is much lower, it usually consists of five to 50 repetitions. These repetitions are also highly variable: due to incorrect assembly during crossing-over during meiotic recombination, many different alleles can form, each consisting of a different number of repetitions. Each person has a very specific composition of these alleles.

This property of mini satellites is used in fingerprinting, the process for creating a genetic fingerprint .

See also

• Classification of repetitive DNA elements, see repetitive DNA
• Satellite DNA
• Microsatellites
• Short tandem repeat

Web links

• MeSH mini satellite

literature

• P. Turnpenny, S. Ellard: Emery's Elements of Medical Genetics. 12th edition. Elsevier, London 2005, ISBN 0-443-10045-4 .
• AR Wyman, R. White: A highly polymorphic locus in human DNA. In: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 77 (11), Nov. 1980, pp. 6754-6748. doi: 10.1073 / pnas.77.11.6754 . PMC 350367 (free full text). PMID 6935681 .
• G. Vergnaud, F. Denoeud: Minisatellites: mutability and genome architecture. In: Genome Res. 10 (7), July 2000, pp. 899-907. doi: 10.1101 / gr.10.7.899 . PMID 10899139 .