Frequency and polymorphism of simple sequence repeats in a contiguous 685-kb DNA sequence containing the human T-cell receptor beta-chain gene complex.

The human T-cell receptor beta-chain (TCRB) gene complex spans 575 kb in chromosome region 7q35 and has been the subject of a large-scale DNA sequencing effort. A contiguous 685-kb DNA sequence from this region was searched by computer analysis for the occurrence of simple sequence repeats (microsatellites) with core sequence lengths of 2-5 nucleotides. Twenty-nine such microsatellites of repeat number n > or = 9 were found, with the majority being dinucleotide repeats. By PCR analysis, 19 were found to be polymorphic in repeat number, thus averaging one per 36 kb. These polymorphic di-, tri-, and tetranucleotide repeats had between 3 and 15 differently sized alleles each. The potential usefulness of these TCRB microsatellites for detecting disease susceptibility alleles was examined by measuring the linkage disequilibrium between these markers and flanking biallelic mutations. All but 4 microsatellites (79%) demonstrated significant linkage disequilibrium (P < 0.0001). This present study highlights the utility and potential outcomes of large-scale DNA sequencing for the identification of polymorphic simple sequence repeats.