Every living cell contains DNA. Only about 1 percent of DNA in humans encodes for mRNA (the precursor for proteins
and other signaling molecules). The remaining 99 percent is called "junk" DNA. This junk has areas
that contain repeated patterns. For instance, the four building blocks of DNA (Guanine, Cytosine, Adenosine, and Thymine)
may repeated with this motif: TAAGCCTA. The number of times that this pattern repeats can vary in different
individuals. For instance, in one person, they may have ten repeats while someone else may have only seven.
Variable Number Tandum Repeats (VNTR's) are used in cases of paternity testing, crime scene/suspect linking, and even
body identification. The number of repeats are inherited from a persons parents. You can test several people to
find out if they are the parents.
Lets look at some examples.
We can see in the above example that the child inherited the 26 repeats from its mother and the 41 repeats from its Father
(Disputed Father 1).
For the purposes of my research, I am looking at how diverse the frogs are on the island. If the population that
was introduced was small, the different number of alleles within that population would have been small. Consequently,
the diversity of the subsequent offspring would also be limited.
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