The development and use of molecular markers for the detection and exploitation of DNA polymorphism is one of the most significant developments in the field of molecular genetics. DNA based molecular markers have acted as versatile tools and have found their own position in various fields like taxonomy, physiology, embryology, genetic engineering etc. A major step forward in genetic identificat...

PREMISE OF THE STUDY Senna spectabilis var. excelsa (Fabaceae) is a South and Central American tree of great ecological importance and one of the most common species in several sites of seasonally dry forests. Our goal was to develop microsatellite markers to assess the genetic diversity and structure of this species. METHODS AND RESULTS We designed and assessed 53 loci obtained from a micros...

The movement of miniature inverted repeat transposable elements (MITEs) modifies genome structure and function. We describe the microsatellite-associated interspersed nuclear element 2 (MINE-2), that integrates at consensus WTTTT target sites, creates dinucleotide TT target site duplications (TSDs), and forms predicted MITE-like secondary structures; a 5' subterminal inverted repeat (SIR; AGGGT...

The evolutionary origins of microsatellites are not well understood. Some investigators have suggested that point mutations that expand repeat arrays beyond a threshold size trigger microsatellites to become variable. However, little empirical data has been brought forth on this and related issues. In this study, we examine the evolutionary history of microsatellites in six species within the o...

SNPs are bi-allelic genetic markers abundantly distributed throughout the human genome. Millions of SNPs have been submitted to public databases and constitute a source of markers for the genotyping of individuals or for the estimation of allele frequencies within populations to identify the genes responsible for diseases using, for example, association studies. Such studies often involve the c...

The long arm of the Y chromosome contains nonoverlapping regions termed azoospermia factor (AZF) with great influence on male fertility. Microdeletions at these regions minimise the males' ability to father offsprings. In this preliminary study, we attempted to screen the presence or absence of twenty Y chromosome's sequence-tagged sites (STS) associated with fertility in infertile and Down syn...

We devised an efficient genetic mapping system in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans which is based upon the differences in number and location of the transposable element Tc1 between the Bristol and Bergerac strains. Using the nearly completed physical map of the C. elegans genome, we selected 40 widely distributed sites which contain a Tc1 element in the Bergerac strain, but not in the Brist...

Sequence tagged sites (STSs) have been proposed as a "common language" for comparing physical and genetic maps of the human genome produced by a variety of techniques. We have produced 44 STSs from 38 mapped loci on human chromosome 21. The STSs represent most of the loci designated as genetic reference or ordered physical framework markers, along with a number of others chosen to span all regi...