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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Minisatellite DNA Probe MZ 1.3: Application in Paternity Testing and Estimate of the Number of Genetic Loci

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The use of hypervariable DNA minisatellite probes recognizing repetitive genomic DNA sequences has become a valuable and powerful tool in paternity testing as well as in forensic stain analysis (Jeffreys et al. 1985, 1987; Werrett et al. 1988). It has been shown that bacteriophage Ml3 DNA can also be used to obtain hypervariable DNA restriction fragment patterns in humans and other species (Vassart et al. 1987). To obtain more informative and specific fragment patterns for the DNA ‘fingerprint’ analysis in man, we have used Ml3 DNA as a probe to screen a human genomic library. Thus, we have isolated the minisatellite DNA probe MZ 1.3 (Schacker et al., in press). MZ 1.3 is a 1.9 kb fragment containing a 27 bp core sequence which is repeated 40 times. Alignment of the MZ 1.3 repeat with the 15 bp repeat of the M13 protein III gene has revealed identity at 8–11 positions, i.e. 53 – 73%. No significant homology >70% was found by comparison of MZ 1.3 to the core repeat sequences of 33.6 and 33.15 described by Jeffreys et al. (1985).