Genomic Variation in Parthenogenetic Lizard Darevskia armeniaca: Evidence from DNA Fingerprinting Data

Microsatellites, or short tandem repeats, are abundant across genomes of most organisms. It is evident that the most straightforward and conclusive way of studying mutations in microsatellite-containing loci is to use clonally transmitted ge-nomes or DNA sequences inherited in multigeneration ped-igrees. At present, little is known about the origin of genetic variation in species that lack effective genetic recombination. DNA fingerprinting in 43 families of the parthenogenetic lizard species Darevskia armeniaca (131 siblings), using (GACA)4, (GGCA)4, (GATA)4, and (CAC)5 probes, revealed mutant fingerprints in siblings that differed from their mothers in sev-eral restriction DNA fragments. In some cases, the mutant fingerprints detected in siblings were also found in population samples. The mutation rate for new restriction fragment length estimated by using multilocus probes varied from 0.8 102 to 4.9 102 per band/per sibling. Probably, the most variations detected as restriction fragment length polymorphism have germ-line origin, but somatic changes of (CAC)n fingerprints in adult lizards were also observed. These results provide new evidence of existing unstable regions in genomes of parthenogenetic vertebrate animals, which provide genetic variation in unisexual populations. Multilocus DNA fingerprinting has proved useful for assay-ing genetic variation in a number of clonal fish (Turner et al