In article <5cnhjm$g0v at mserv1.dl.ac.uk>, "Boris Martchenko" <bomar at rva.stud.pu.ru> writes:
>Hi all:
>>Could anyone tell me who is the author of term "microsatellites" and is it
>the same that "simple sequences"?
>(refers is appreciated)
>>Thanks,
>Boris
>
I do not really know where the term comes from.
However they are short tandem repeats in contrast to minisatellites which are
long. A alternative name is SSTR (simple sequence tandem repeats) or VNTR
(variable number tanden repeats). They are called --satellites because they
were supposed to be located in satellite DNA (heterochromatin). On the contrary
they are dispersed all over the genome (even in coding regions; e.g. gene for
the Huntington disease: Huntingtin) of every organism (even in chloroplasts
sometimes). Apart from that they do not have to be polymorphic to be called
microsatellites.
Manolis Dermitzakis
Department of Biology,
University of Crete
GREECE.
