Characterization of tomato DNA clones with sequence similarity to human minisatellites 33.6 and 33.15

A tomato lambda genomic library was screened with the human minisatellites 33.6 and 33.15. Similar tomato sequences are estimated to occur on average every 4000 kb. In thirteen hybridizing clones characterized, the size of minisatellite arrays varied between 100 bp and 3 kb. The structure of the repetitive elements is complex as the human core sequence is interspersed with other elements. In three cases, sequences similar to the human minisatellites were part of a higher-order tandem repeat. The chromosomal position of these sequences was established by ascertaining linkage to previously mapped RFLP markers. In contrast to the human genome, no clustering of minisatellite loci was observed in tomato. The fingerprints generated by hybridizing tomato minisatellites to genomic DNA of a set of cultivars were, in two cases, more variable than those obtained with 33.6 or 33.15. Two of the characterized probes detected 4-8 alleles of a single locus, which displayed 10-15 times more polymorphism than random RFLP clones. Some minisatellites contain di- and tri-nucleotide microsatellite repeated motifs which may account for the high level of polymorphism detected with these clones.