Hello Student,

Classification of Satellite DNA : It is classified into two categories based on base composition, length of segment and number of repetitive units :

• VNTRs- Variable Number of Tandem repeats or minisatellites surrounded by conserved restriction site. Small DNA sequence is arranged tandemly in many copy numbers. Copy number varies from chromosome to chnromosome in individual. These repeats show very high number of polymorphism. Size of VNTRs 0.1-20 kb. It forms the basis of DNA fingerprinting.
  
• SSRs - Single Sequence Repeats or STRs - Short Tandem Repeats or microsatellites with 1-6 base pairs.