Meiotic mutation rates of mini- and microsatellites in a Spanish population sample

Abstract

We report an estimation of meiotic mutation rates at 6 minisatellites and 15 Short Tandem Repeats (STRs) deduced from the results obtained in the course of the filiation analyses carried out in our institute. At the six minisatellites, we observed 13 mutational events out of 2473 meioses, leading to a calculated overall mutation rate of 5.3×10 −3. Only 3 paternal mutations out of 3283 meioses were found at the 15 STRs under study, leading to an overall mutation rate of 0.9×10 −3. According to the stepwise mutation model, in these three cases the mutations could be due to the gain or loss of one repeat.