Short tandem repeats (STR) have become one of the most widely used genomic markers for identity testing and gene mapping due to their high degree of heterozygosity. Accurate genotyping of STRs by fragment sizing will of course rely on precise relative migration of identical alleles, and prior knowledge of the spectrum of most or all possible apparent sizes that are derived from those relative migrations. The list of all possible alleles for a genetic locus is called an allele list. The allele list serves as a lookup table that will label fragments according to a naming scheme chosen by the user.
In the CEQ 8000 Fragment Analysis software, the process of binning compiles all of the pertinent fragment lengths from real data, estimates their most likely apparent sizes, and taking size drift into account, assigns integer lengths (nominal sizes) to them. The product of the binning process is an allele list that can then be used to identify alleles whenever amplification products of the same genetic locus are separated under the same conditions.
|
