SURVEYING PLANT GENOMES FOR VARIABLE NUMBER OF TANDEM REPEAT LOCI

Different minisatellite DNA systems are taxonomically widely distributed and variation in such systems, where it exists, can be used to investigate various biological questions. Numerous examples of repetitive sequences revealing intraspecific genetic variation are described in the chapter. Randomly chosen repeats often reveal variation in a variety of organisms and intraspecific genetic variation of repetitive sequences can occur whether the repeat sequences are base pairs (bp) or relatively large sequences. Thus, it seems likely that the variation of repetitive sequences is a general characteristic of such sequences regardless of size or composition, rather than a special characteristic of particular repetitive. For any particular organism, it is necessary to survey a variety of minisatellite probes to select those most appropriate for the specific biological issues to be investigated. © 1993, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.