Isolation of a novel mildly repetitive DNA sequence that is predominantly located at the terminus of the short arm of chromosome 4 near the Huntington disease gene

A novel mildly repetitive DNA sequence that is reiterated approximately 20 times in the human genome has been isolated and characterized. Most of the repeat units are localized very near the terminus of the short arm of chromosome 4 (4p) in the region known to contain the Huntington disease (HD) gene. A cloned probe that detects the repeated sequence reveals a restriction fragment length polymorphism that is close to and/or distal to the most distal genetic locus on 4p. This probe, therefore, provides a new genetic marker very close to and possibly flanking the HD gene. In addition, this probe should prove very useful for detailed physical mapping of the most distal region of 4p around the HD gene. The few (two or three) copies of this repeat not located near the terminus of 4p are located near the ends of two other chromosomes, 14 and 21.