[Abstract]  [Full Text]  [PDF]

Lara A. Underkoffler^1*, Joelle N. Collins¹, Jonathan D. Choi² and Rebecca J. Oakey²

¹ Division of Human Genetics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA 19104. USA.
² Division of Medical Genetics, GKT School of Medicine. 8th Floor Guy's Tower, London, SE1 9RT. UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed: Lara A. Underkoffler, Division of Human Genetics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA 19104. USA. Email: underkoff@email.chop.edu

Biol. Proced. Online 2003;5:116-122. doi:10.1251/bpo53
Submitted: March 19, 2003; Accepted: April 01, 2003; Published: May 01, 2003.

Indexing terms: Genotype; Nondisjunction, Genetic; Polymorphism (Genetics).

Microsatellite markers are simple sequence repeats within the mammalian genome that can be used for identifying disease loci, mapping genes of interest as well as studying segregation patterns related to meiotic nondisjunction. Different strains of mice have variable CA repeat lengths and PCR based methods can be used to identify them, thus allowing for specific genotypes to be assigned. Molecular genotyping offers such identification at any developmental stage, which allows for a broad range of anomalies to be studied. We studied chromosomal segregation in relation to nondisjunction in early-gestation mouse embryos using molecular genotyping. Information on the parental origin as well as the number of chromosomes a given progeny carried was obtained in our analysis.