Direct repeats are a type of genetic sequence that consists of two or more repeats of a specific sequence. In other words, the direct repeats are

nucleotide Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecul ...

sequences present in multiple copies in the

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ...

. Generally, a direct repeat occurs when a sequence is repeated with the same pattern downstream. There is and no reverse complement associated with a direct repeat. It may or may not have intervening nucleotides. The nucleotide sequence written in bold characters signifies the repeated sequence. ::: ::: Linguistically, a typical direct repeat is comparable to saying "bye-bye".

Types

There are several types of repeated sequences : *Interspersed (or dispersed) DNA repeats (interspersed repetitive sequences) are copies of transposable elements interspersed throughout the genome. *Flanking (or terminal) repeats (terminal repeat sequences) are sequences that are repeated on both ends of a sequence, for example, the long terminal repeats (LTRs) on

retroviruses A retrovirus is a type of virus that inserts a DNA copy of its RNA genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell. Once inside the host cell's cytoplasm, the virus uses its own reverse transcriptase ...

. Direct terminal repeats are in the same direction and inverted terminal repeats are opposite to each other in direction. * Tandem repeats (tandem repeat sequences) are repeated copies which lie adjacent to each other. These can also be direct or

inverted repeats An inverted repeat (or IR) is a single stranded sequence of nucleotides followed downstream by its reverse complement. The intervening sequence of nucleotides between the initial sequence and the reverse complement can be any length including zero. ...

. The

ribosomal RNA Ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) is a type of non-coding RNA which is the primary component of ribosomes, essential to all cells. rRNA is a ribozyme which carries out protein synthesis in ribosomes. Ribosomal RNA is transcribed from ribosomal ...

and

transfer RNA Transfer RNA (abbreviated tRNA and formerly referred to as sRNA, for soluble RNA) is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length (in eukaryotes), that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino a ...

genes belong to the class of middle repetitive DNA.

Microsatellite DNA

A tract of repetitive DNA in which a motif of a few base pairs is tandemly repeated numerous times (e.g. 5 to 50 times) is referred to as

microsatellite A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. ...

DNA. Thus direct repeat tandem sequences are a form of microsattelite DNA. The process of

DNA mismatch repair DNA mismatch repair (MMR) is a system for recognizing and repairing erroneous insertion, deletion, and mis-incorporation of bases that can arise during DNA replication and recombination, as well as repairing some forms of DNA damage. Mismatch ...

plays a prominent role in the formation of direct trinucleotide repeat expansions.Richard GF. The Startling Role of Mismatch Repair in Trinucleotide Repeat Expansions. Cells. 2021 Apr 26;10(5):1019. doi: 10.3390/cells10051019. PMID: 33925919; PMCID: PMC8145212 Such repeat expansions underlie several neurological and developmental disorders in humans.

References

Repetitive DNA sequences Genetics {{genetics-stub

Types

Microsatellite DNA

See also

References