Satellite DNA

**Semantic type:** Nucleic Acid, Nucleoside, or Nucleotide|Nucleotide Sequence

**Definition:** DNA that contains many tandem highly repetitive sequences, that have a base composition (and thus density) sufficiently different from that of normal DNA that it sediments as a distinct band in cesium chloride density gradients. Satellite DNA is located at very specific spots in the genome (on chromosomes 1, 9, 16 and the Y chromosome, the tiny short arms of chromosomes 13-15 and 21 and 22, and near the centromeres of chromosomes).