ABSTRACT
The human genome is abundant in tandem repeats. Minisatellites were first defined as a class of tandem repeats in the 1980s. Some of these repeats share a GC-rich core sequence. Subsequently, tandem repeats with higher AT contents of core sequence have been documented. The minisatellites are also called variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs) as shown in Figure 17.1. The repeat unit length of a VNTR can range from several to hundreds of base pairs (bp). The tandem repeat arrays can be kilobases (Kb, corresponding to 103 bp) long, and the numbers of tandem repeat units in some VNTR loci are highly variable, leading to variable lengths of DNA fragments. A genotype is defined by a particular number of tandem repeat units at a given locus.
