A Variable Number Tandem Repeat (or VNTR) is a location in a genome where a short nucleotide sequence is organized as a tandem repeat. These can be found on many chromosomes, and often show variations in length between individuals. Each variant acts as an inherited allele, allowing them to be used for personal or parental identification. Their analysis is useful in genetics and biology research, forensics, and DNA fingerprinting.
Read more about Variable Number Tandem Repeat: VNTR Structure and Allelic Variation, Use of VNTRs in Genetic Analysis, VNTR Inheritance, Relationship To Other Types of Repetitive DNA, Classes of VNTRs
Famous quotes containing the words variable, number, tandem and/or repeat:
“There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady’s head-dress.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“I can’t quite define my aversion to asking questions of strangers. From snatches of family battles which I have heard drifting up from railway stations and street corners, I gather that there are a great many men who share my dislike for it, as well as an equal number of women who ... believe it to be the solution to most of this world’s problems.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“The Cad is the entire epitome, the complete blossom and fruit in one, of what we are told is an age of culture. Behold him in the vélodrome as he yells insanely after his kind as they tear along on their tandem machines in a match, and then ask yourself candidly, O my reader, if any age before this in all the centuries of earth ever produced any creature so utterly low and loathsome, so physically, mentally, individually, and collectively hideous?”
—Ouida [Marie Louise De La Ramée] (1839–1908)
“Failures are easier to repeat than successes.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)