ABSTRACT
The mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTL) in plant species, for which excellent genetic maps are available, testifies to the effectiveness of the strategy to unravel the genetic determinism of complex traits. This chapter summarizes the knowledge that has been gained in the last 4 years about families of hypervariable mini-satellites in humans and domestic animals and to evaluate whether these sequences may fulfill the expectations they raised among animal breeders. However, analysis of the available genetic maps of human chromosomes clearly indicates that the distribution of variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) markers is not as random as initially deduced from linkage studies performed with human multilocus DNA fingerprints. Moreover, methods have been developed to detect a larger proportion of the existing genetic variation characterizing “normal” DNA sequences.
