Inheritance and mutation of hypervariable (GATA)(n) microsatellite loci in a moth, Ephestia kuehniella

We established homogeneous sublines that contained two or three homozygous DNA loci with long (GATA)n tracts from polymorphic Ephestia laboratory strains. Crossbreeding analysis assigned these loci to two or three different chromosomes, respectively. A nonrelated and rather recently isolated strain contained at least three other poly(GATA) loci located on different chromosomes. Germline mutations, visible as restriction fragment size changes between parents and offspring or loss of a poly(GATA) tract, are relatively rare in some strains but unusually frequent in the ml strain. The mutations affect not only GATA repeats but also flanking sequences. In five mutations investigated by crossbreeding, the altered poly(GATA)-containing restriction fragments remained in their original linkage groups.Key words: Bkm DNA, microsatellite, simple sequence repeats.