Previous reports have interpreted hybridization between snake satellite DNA and DNA clones from a variety of distant taxonomic groups as evidence for evolutionary conservation, which implies common ancestry (homology) and/or convergence (analogy) to produce the cross-hybridizing sequences. We have isolated 11 clones from a genomic library of Drosophila melanogaster, using a cloned 2.5-kb snake ...

The variable surface antigens (Vsa) of the murine respiratory pathogen Mycoplasma pulmonis are associated with the virulence of the microorganism in the lung. In strain UAB CT, the antigens consist of an N-terminal region that is combined with one of seven different C-terminal variable regions comprised of tandem repeats. M. pulmonis producing a VsaA protein with about 40 tandem repeats (R40) d...

Many proteins, especially in eukaryotes, contain tandem repeats of several domains from the same family. These repeats have a variety of binding properties and are involved in protein-protein interactions as well as binding to other ligands such as DNA and RNA. The rapid expansion of protein domain repeats is assumed to have evolved through internal tandem duplications. However, the exact mecha...

In contrast to the gene-rich chromosome arms, the sequence of a typical plant centromere contains a large amount of repetitive DNA, most commonly large tracts of tandemly repeated sequences, or satellite DNA. However, the question of how this arrangement of sequences comes about is still a matter of active debate (reviewed in Malik and Henikoff, 2009). Centromere sequence evolves rapidly, possi...

A total of 20,000 parent-offspring transfers of alleles were examined through the genotyping within 40 CEPH reference families of 28 short tandem repeat polymorphisms (STRPs) located on chromosome 19. Forty-seven initial mutation events were detected in the STRPs using DNA from transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines, but less than half (39%) could be verified using DNA from untransformed cells. ...

MOTIVATION AND RESULTS The importance of Tandem Repeats in some genomes is now well established. We have reported elsewhere some interesting new results obtained by means of a preliminary program for finding Tandem Repeats in DNA sequences, together with a brief description of the basic ideas of the algorithm. We describe here a completely new program based only in part on those ideas, we brief...

MOTIVATION Resolving tandemly repeated genomic sequences is a necessary step in improving our understanding of the human genome. Short tandem repeats (TRs), or microsatellites, are often used as molecular markers in genetics, and clinically, variation in microsatellites can lead to genetic disorders like Huntington's diseases. Accurately resolving repeats, and in particular TRs, remains a chall...

Y-short tandem repeats (STRs) are located in the nonrecombining part of the Y-chromosome. Its genetic characteristics are helpful to paternity testing. The male lineage can be pursued over several generations. Since an overwhelming majority of rape or sexual assault cases involve male suspects, these markers proved to be very useful with mixed stains. Routine casework performed in our laborator...

The human genome contains many simple tandem repeats that are widely dispersed and highly polymorphic. At least one group of simple tandem repeats, the DNA trinucleotide repeats, can dramaticallyexpand in size during transmission from one generation to the next to cause disease by a process known as dynamic mutation. We investigated the ability of trinucleotide repeats AAT and CAG to expand in ...