[Relationship between micro- and minisatellites in the human genome].

Micro- and minisatellites constitute an essential part of DNA with a low sequence complexity and carry several important functions. A search for tandem repeats in the human genome with a length of a repeat unit of up to 70 bp, including repeats with a great number of nucleotide substitutions, has been performed using the TaadeaSWAN program. It was shown that, for a considerable number of minisatellites with the length of the repeating unit of less than 25 nt, a shorter repeating motif can be distinguished in the sequence of this repeat, which often is similar to the sequence of minisatellites widely occurring in the human genome. A model of hierarchic origination of minisatellites in the human genome is suggested.