Inter-allelic interactions play a major role in microsatellite evolution

Microsatellite mutations identified in pedigrees confirm that most changes involve the gain or loss of single repeats. However, an unexpected pattern is revealed when the resulting data are plotted on standardized scales that range from the shortest to longest allele at a locus. Both mutation rate and mutation bias reveal a strong dependency on allele length relative to other alleles at the same locus. We show that models in which alleles mutate...