Back in Business (Pro & Eu): Un-Spacey Satellites

If you have not heard of minisatellites and DNA fingerprinting or have forgetten about them, here is a link for you:
https://sciencegrants.dest.gov.au/scienceprize/Pages/Doc.aspx?name=previous_winners/Aust1998Jeffreys.htm

Genetic fingerprinting, DNA testing, DNA typing, and DNA profiling are techniques used to distinguish between individuals of the same species using only samples of their DNA. Its invention by Sir Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester was announced in 1985. Two humans will have the vast majority of their DNA sequence in common. Genetic fingerprinting exploits highly variable repeating sequences called minisatellites. Two unrelated humans will be likely to have different numbers of minisatellites at a given locus. By using PCR enough DNA is obtained to then detect the number of repeats at several loci. It is possible to establish a match that is extremely unlikely to have arisen by coincidence, except in the case of identical twins, who will have identical genetic profiles. (Wikipedia)

However DNA fingerprinting is not 100% foolproof. The term "fingerprinting" is actually a misnomer. Read about it in http://www.sciencewatch.com/interviews/sir_alec_jeffreys.htm under subtitle: Fingerprinting has been subject to a lot of controversy, something you have alluded to in some of your papers. Do you personally have any reservations about its reliability?

While both satellites are similar in nature, other than sizes.....
The advantage of microsatellites over minisatellites is that the size of each allele is much smaller and they are therefore more amenable to PCR analysis. Their small size also means that they are more likely to remain intact in highly degraded DNA such as that from forensic samples or from ancient DNA - for example from Egyptian mummies. - thus better for linkage mapping of genome as noted in your notes although minisatellites have also been used in linkage mapping.


WHY Satellites?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_DNA