Structure and Organisation of the Human Genome

DNA analysis in human disease.

“…On this DNA analysis in human disease basis human DNA can be arbitrarily classified (depending on hybridisation conditions, fragment size, etc) into four major groups: a zero time reassociation class (6-9%), which probably contains inverted repeated sequences (fold back DNA); a rapidly reassociating class (22%), which contains sequences repeated about 103-106 times per haploid genome; an intermediate reassociating class (13%) containing sequences repeated I0-103 times; and finally, a slowly reassociating class (5%) representing sequences that are either unique or repeated less than 10 times and so only present at very low concentrations in genomic DNA.20 Some highly repeated sequences occur in blocks of tandem repeats-for example, satellite DNA-others are highly dispersed throughout the genome and can occur as well defined families of related sequences, such as the Alu and Kpn families. 26 The dispersed repeats tend to occur in human DNA once every two to 10 kb, which complicates the isolation of unique sequences. Genomic DNA is mostly probed with unique or low repeat sequences.…”

Mutagenic activity of BKV and JCV in human and other mammalian cells

“…The genetic stability of the human genome has been proposed to be influenced, among other factors, by its interaction with the genetic material of different viruses present in the human environment (e.g., [10]). This idea was substantiated by the finding that some viruses of the papova, adeno, and herpes groups as well as retroviruses are able to mutate cells cultured in vitro [5,17,28,34, for further review see 11].…”