Van Lith H A, Van Zutphen L F
Department of Laboratory Animal Science, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
Anim Genet. 1996 Dec;27(6):387-95. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2052.1996.tb00505.x.
Microsatellite polymorphisms are invaluable for mapping vertebrate genomes. In order to estimate the occurrence of microsatellites in the rabbit genome and to assess their feasibility as markers in rabbit genetics, a survey on the presence of all types of mononucleotide, dinucleotide, trinucleotide and tetranucleotide repeats, with a length of about 20 bp or more, was conducted by searching the published rabbit DNA sequences in the EMBL nucleotide database (version 323). A total of 181 rabbit microsatellites could be extracted from the present database. The estimated frequency of microsatellites in the rabbit genome was one microsatellite for every 2-3 kb of DNA. Dinucleotide repeats constituted the prevailing class of microsatellites, followed by trinucleotide, mononucleotide and tetranucleotide repeats, respectively. The average length of the microsatellites, as found in the database, was 26, 23, 23 and 22 bp for mono-, di-, tri- and tetranucleotide repeats, respectively. The most common repeat motif was AG, followed by A, AC, AGG and CCG. This group comprised about 70% of all extracted rabbit microsatellites. About 61% of the microsatellites were found in non-coding regions of genes, whereas 15% resided in (protein) coding regions. A significant fraction of rabbit microsatellites (about 22%) was found within interspersed repetitive DNA sequences.
微卫星多态性对于绘制脊椎动物基因组图谱具有重要价值。为了估计微卫星在兔基因组中的出现频率，并评估它们作为兔遗传学标记的可行性，我们通过搜索EMBL核苷酸数据库（第323版）中已发表的兔DNA序列，对所有类型的单核苷酸、二核苷酸、三核苷酸和四核苷酸重复序列（长度约20 bp或更长）的存在情况进行了调查。从当前数据库中总共提取出181个兔微卫星。估计兔基因组中微卫星的频率为每2 - 3 kb DNA中有一个微卫星。二核苷酸重复序列是微卫星的主要类型，其次分别是三核苷酸、单核苷酸和四核苷酸重复序列。在数据库中发现，单核苷酸、二核苷酸、三核苷酸和四核苷酸重复序列的微卫星平均长度分别为26、23、23和22 bp。最常见的重复基序是AG，其次是A、AC、AGG和CCG。这一组约占所有提取的兔微卫星的70%。约61%的微卫星存在于基因的非编码区，而15%位于（蛋白质）编码区。相当一部分兔微卫星（约22%）存在于散布的重复DNA序列中。
