Ancient and Modern Genomes Reveal Microsatellites Maintain a Dynamic Equilibrium Through Deep Time.

ABSTRACT: Microsatellites are widely used in population genetics, but their evolutionary dynamics remain poorly understood. It is unclear whether microsatellite loci drift in length over time. This is important because the mutation processes that underlie these important genetic markers are central to the evolutionary models that employ microsatellites. We identify more than 27 million microsatellites using a novel and unique dataset of modern and ancient Adélie penguin genomes along with data from 63 published chordate genomes. We investigate microsatellite evolutionary dynamics over 2 timescales: one based on Adélie penguin samples dating to ∼46.5 ka and the other dating to the diversification of chordates aged more than 500 Ma. We show that the process of microsatellite allele length evolution is

SUBMITTER: McComish BJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10972684 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature