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What is the difference between micro&mini satellites? |
A microsatellite is a short, repetitive sequence of DNA. Since they tend to vary little between closely related organisms, microsatellites are often used by scientists as genetic markers to identify individuals that come from the same breeding population. They are also known as short tandem repeats (STRs) and simple sequence repeats (SSRs). A minisatellite is a small portion of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) macromolecule responsible for coding and transferring human genetic characteristics. This molecule is made up of a ladder-like structure of alternating base pairs of phosphate and deoxyribose molecules. In the case of a minisatellite, only 10 to 60 base pairs often exist, but sometimes 100 or more may be present. These minisatellites are known to exist at more than 1,000 locations in the human genome, which codes for all the genetic traits of an organism. |