Consanguineous unions permit the “reunion” of ancestral chromosomal segments in a
pattern referred to as “autozygosity,” which is essentially a special form of homozygosity.
This has long been exploited as a gene mapping tool because it is relatively easy to track a
recessive mutation by the surrounding pattern of homozygous markers. The recent advent of
single nucleotide polymorphism microarrays has rapidly replaced the historical use of
microsatellites for this purpose. In this review, the author discusses other exciting …