Minisatellite mutational processes reduce F-st estimates

We have used a new method for binning minisatellite alleles (semi-automated allele aggregation) and report the extent of population diversity detectab le by eleven minisatellite loci in 2689 individuals from 19 human populatio ns distributed widely throughout the world. Whereas population relationship s are consistent with those found in other studies, our estimate of genetic differentiation (F-st) between populations is less than 8%, which is lower than comparative estimates of between 10%-15% obtained by using other sour ces of polymorphism data. We infer that mutational processes are involved i n reducing F-st estimates from minisatellite data because, first, the lowes t F-st estimates are found at loci showing autocorrelated frequencies among alleles of similar size and, second, F-st declines with heterozygosity but by more than predicted assuming simple models of mutation. These conclusio ns are consistent with the view that minisatellites are subject to selectiv e or mutational constraints in addition to those expected under simple step wise mutation models.