A SNPSTR is a compound
genetic marker A genetic marker is a gene or DNA sequence with a known location on a chromosome that can be used to identify individuals or species. It can be described as a variation (which may arise due to mutation or alteration in the genomic loci) that can be ...
composed of one or more
SNPs and one
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. ...
(STR).
Autosomal
An autosome is any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome. The members of an autosome pair in a diploid cell have the same morphology, unlike those in allosome, allosomal (sex chromosome) pairs, which may have different structures. The DNA in au ...
SNPSTRs, which contain an SNP and a microsatellite within 500 base pairs of one another, were discovered in 2002. More recently a
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...
that contains all SNPSTRs in five model genomes, including human, has been created.
[AGRAFIOTI I AND STUMPF MPH (2007) "SNPSTR: a database of compound microsatellite-SNP markers" Nucleic Acids Research 35(Database issue): 71–75.]
Usage and importance
There has been widespread and growing interest in genetic markers suitable for drawing population genetic inferences about past demographic events and to detect the effects of selection. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (
SNPs) and
microsatellites
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. ...
(or short tandem repeats, STRs) have received great attention in the analysis of human population history, even though they have both disadvantages. It was thus suggested that the combination of these two markers could give rise to better conclusions.
See also
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Biological database
Biological databases are libraries of biological sciences, collected from scientific experiments, published literature, high-throughput experiment technology, and computational analysis. They contain information from research areas including genom ...
*
Population genetics
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and between populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and pop ...
References
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Repetitive DNA sequences
Genetics