Survey of compound microsatellites in multiple Lactobacillus genomes

Distinct simple sequence repeats with 2 or more individual microsatellites joined together or lying adjacent to each other are identified as compound microsatellites. Investigation of such composite microsatellites in the genomes of genus Lactobacillus was the aim of this study. In silico inspection of microsatellite clustering in genomes of 14 Lactobacillus species revealed a wealth of compound microsatellites. All of the mined compound microsatellites were imperfect, were composed of variant motifs, and increased in all genomes, with maximum distance (d(MAX)) increments of 10 to 50. The majority of these repeats were present in the coding regions. A correlation of microsatellite to compound microsatellite density was detected. The difference established in compound microsatellite division among eukaryotes, Escherichia coli, and lactobacilli is suggestive of diverse genomic features and elementary distinction between creation and fixation methods of compound microsatellites among these organisms.