Low copy repeats

Okay kiddo, imagine you are reading a book and you come across two pages that look almost the same. These two pages might have some of the same words or pictures. Now imagine this happens in your DNA, which is like a book that tells your body how to work.

Low-copy repeats are sections of DNA that are repeated in different parts of the book (DNA). Just like the two pages in the book, these sections of DNA look almost identical to one another. Scientists call them low-copy because they are only repeated a few times throughout the DNA book.

While low-copy repeats might seem harmless, they can actually cause problems. Sometimes the DNA book gets a little mixed up and accidentally copies too much or too little of these repeating sections. This can lead to genetic disorders or diseases.

So, scientists study low-copy repeats to try and understand how these mistakes happen and how to prevent them. They use special tools to look at the DNA book and figure out which parts are repeated and where they are located. By learning more about these low-copy repeats, scientists hope to improve our understanding of genetics and find better ways to treat genetic diseases.