Feasibility of prenatal diagnosis of beta-thalassemia using two highly polymorphic microsatellites 5' to the beta-globin gene.

Short tandem repeats (STRs) are highly informative loci within the human genome, consisting of short nucleotide sequences tandemly repeated in variable numbers. This results in different alleles of variable length. Herein we describe two STRS located 5' to the beta-globin gene. They can be detected by non radioactive methods and may be used to make prenatal diagnosis of beta-thalassemia.