Microsatellite sequences of mammals and their applications in genome analysis in pigs - A review

The microsatellites are the short tandem repeats of I to 6 bp long monomer sequences that are repeated several times. These short tandem repeats are considered to be generated by the slipped strand mispairing. Based on the unique capability of alternating purine-pyrimidine residues to form Z-DNA, the possible role of the microsatellites in gene regulation has been proposed. The microsatellites are highly polymorphic, follow Mendelian inheritance and are evenly distributed throughout the genomes of eukaryotes. They are easy to isolate and the polymerase chain reaction based typing of the alleles can be readily automated. These properties make them the preferred markers for comparison of the genetic structure of the closely related breeds/populations; very high-resolution genetic mapping and parentage testing etc. The microsatellites have rapidly replaced the restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and the random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) in most applications in the population genetics studies in most species, including the various farm animals viz. cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep and pigs etc. More and more reports are now available describing the use of microsatellites in pigs ranging from measurement of genetic variation between breeds/populations, developing high resolution genetic maps to identifying and mapping genes of biological and economic importance.