MBE Advance Access originally published online on March 8, 2007
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2007 24(5):1097-1100; doi:10.1093/molbev/msm051
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Letters |
Is There Evidence for Convergent Evolution around Human Microsatellites?

* Smurfit Institute of Genetics, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
E-mail: matthew.webster{at}ebc.uu.se.
Accepted for publication February 28, 2007.
A study by Vowles and Amos (2004) identified atypical patterns of base composition around human microsatellites and argued that microsatellites generate mutational biases in their flanking regions. Here, we perform simulations of molecular evolution using a simple model that suggest similar patterns can be produced without any such biases in genome evolution.
Key Words: microsatellite convergent evolution simulation genome evolution mutation bias
1 Present address: Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden