An 18 mer sequence in a rat 1.3 kbp EcoRI repeat detects genetic polymorphism in humans

Abstract

DNA fingerprinting involves the typing of an individual's DNA content to produce somatically stable, individual-specific DNA fingerprints. This technique often uses hypervariable minisatellite (HVMS) sequences as the fingerprinting probe and has found extensive use in several disciplines. Recently, we sequenced a 1.3 kbp EcoRI repetitive DNA fragment, shown to harbour the meiotic DNA repair site(s) of rat pachytene spermatocytes. This 1.3 kbp clone contained four sequences sharing high homology to the various HVMS sequences reported in the literature. Here we show that one of the sequences can indeed detect polymorphism in human individuals and can be used for DNA fingerprinting.