Molecular and Computational Methods for the Detection of Microsatellite Instability in Cancer

Microsatellite instability (MSI) is a genomic alteration in which microsatellites, usually of one to four nucleotide repeats, accumulate mutations corresponding to deletions/insertions of a few nucleotides. The MSI phenotype has been extensively characterized in colorectal cancer and is due to a deficiency of the DNA mismatch repair system. MSI has recently been shown to be present in most types of cancer with variable frequencies (from