BIOLOGY 1A03 Lecture Notes - Gene Duplication, Alec Jeffreys, Transposable Element

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Biology
• Course: BIOLOGY 1A03
• Professor: Lovaye Kajiura

Document Summary

In addition to containing repeated sequences from transposable elements, eukaryotic genomes have several thousand loci called simple tandem repeats (strs) These are small sequences repeated one after another down the length of a chromosome. Soon after these sequences were first characterized, alec jeffreys and co- workers established that microsatellite and minisatellite loci are hypervariable meaning that they vary among individuals much more than any other type of sequence does. Dna fingerprinting refers to any technique for identifying individuals based on the unique features of their genomes. Because microsatellite and minisatellite loci vary so much among individuals, they are now the loci of choice for dna fingerprinting. To fingerprint an individual, researchers obtain a dna sample and perform pcr using primers that flank a region containing an str. Once many copies are available, they can be analyzed to determine the number of repeats present.