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Rare Variant (genetics)
A rare functional variant is a genetic variant which alters gene function, and which occurs at low frequency in a population. Rare variants play a significant role in both complex and Mendelian disease and are responsible for a portion of the missing heritability of complex diseases. The theoretical case for a significant role of rare variants is that alleles that strongly predispose an individual to disease will be kept at low frequencies in populations by purifying selection. Rare variants are increasingly being studied, as a consequence of whole exome and whole genome sequencing efforts. While these variants are individually infrequent in populations, there are many in human populations, and they can be unique to specific populations. They are more likely to be deleterious than common variants, as a result of rapid population growth and weak purifying selection. They have been suspected of acting independently or along with common variants to cause disease states. Methods ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitosis, or meiosis or other types of damage to DNA (such as pyrimidine dimers caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation), which then may undergo error-prone repair (especially microhomology-mediated end joining), cause an error during other forms of repair, or cause an error during replication (translesion synthesis). Mutations may also result from insertion or deletion of segments of DNA due to mobile genetic elements. Mutations may or may not produce detectable changes in the observable characteristics (phenotype) of an organism. Mutations play a part in both normal and abnormal biological processes including: evolution, cancer, and the development of the immune system, including junctional diversity. Mutation is the ultimate source o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Disease-common Variant
The common disease-common variant (often abbreviated CD-CV) hypothesis predicts that common disease-causing alleles, or variants, will be found in all human populations which manifest a given disease. Common variants (not necessarily disease-causing) are known to exist in coding and regulatory sequences of genes. According to the CD-CV hypothesis, some of those variants lead to susceptibility to complex polygenic diseases. Each variant at each gene influencing a complex disease will have a small additive or multiplicative effect on the disease phenotype. These diseases, or traits, are evolutionarily neutral in part because so many genes influence the traits. The hypothesis has held in the case of putative causal variants in apolipoprotein E, including ''APOE'' ε4, associated with Alzheimer's disease.Expanded high-resolution genetic study of 109 Swedish families with Alzheimer's disease, Anna Sillén, Jorge Andrade, Lena Lilius, Charlotte Forsell, Karin Axelman, Jacob Odeberg, Bengt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whole Genome Sequencing
Whole genome sequencing (WGS), also known as full genome sequencing, complete genome sequencing, or entire genome sequencing, is the process of determining the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of the DNA sequence of an organism's genome at a single time. This entails sequencing all of an organism's chromosomal DNA as well as DNA contained in the mitochondrial DNA, mitochondria and, for plants, in the chloroplast. Whole genome sequencing has largely been used as a research tool, but was being introduced to clinics in 2014. In the future of personalized medicine, whole genome sequence data may be an important tool to guide therapeutic intervention. The tool of DNA sequencing, gene sequencing at Single-nucleotide polymorphism, SNP level is also used to pinpoint functional variants from association studies and improve the knowledge available to researchers interested in evolutionary biology, and hence may lay the foundation for predicting disease susceptibility and drug response. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetic Drift
Genetic drift, also known as allelic drift or the Wright effect, is the change in the frequency of an existing gene variant (allele) in a population due to random chance. Genetic drift may cause gene variants to disappear completely and thereby reduce genetic variation. It can also cause initially rare alleles to become much more frequent and even fixed. When few copies of an allele exist, the effect of genetic drift is more notable, and when many copies exist, the effect is less notable. In the middle of the 20th century, vigorous debates occurred over the relative importance of natural selection versus neutral processes, including genetic drift. Ronald Fisher, who explained natural selection using Mendelian genetics, held the view that genetic drift plays at most a minor role in evolution, and this remained the dominant view for several decades. In 1968, population geneticist Motoo Kimura rekindled the debate with his neutral theory of molecular evolution, which claims that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Functional Genomics
Functional genomics is a field of molecular biology that attempts to describe gene (and protein) functions and interactions. Functional genomics make use of the vast data generated by genomic and transcriptomic projects (such as genome sequencing projects and RNA sequencing). Functional genomics focuses on the dynamic aspects such as gene transcription, translation, regulation of gene expression and protein–protein interactions, as opposed to the static aspects of the genomic information such as DNA sequence or structures. A key characteristic of functional genomics studies is their genome-wide approach to these questions, generally involving high-throughput methods rather than a more traditional "gene-by-gene" approach. Definition and goals of functional genomics In order to understand functional genomics it is important to first define function. In their paper Graur et al. define function in two possible ways. These are "selected effect" and "causal role". The "selected ef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SNP Annotation
Single nucleotide polymorphism annotation ( SNP annotation) is the process of predicting the effect or function of an individual SNP using SNP annotation tools. In SNP annotation the biological information is extracted, collected and displayed in a clear form amenable to query. SNP functional annotation is typically performed based on the available information on nucleic acid and protein sequences. Introduction Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) play an important role in genome wide association studies because they act as primary biomarkers. SNPs are currently the marker of choice due to their large numbers in virtually all populations of individuals. The location of these biomarkers can be tremendously important in terms of predicting functional significance, genetic mapping and population genetics. Each SNP represents a nucleotide change between two individuals at a defined location. SNPs are the most common genetic variant found in all individual with one SNP every 100–30 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genome-wide Significance
In genome-wide association studies, genome-wide significance (abbreviated GWS) is a specific threshold for determining the statistical significance of a reported association between a given single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and a given trait. The most commonly accepted threshold is ''p'' < 5 × 10−8, which is based on performing a for all the independent common SNPs across the . If a ''p''-value is found to be lower than this threshold in a genome-wide association study, the of no true SNP-association will typically be rejected. Howeve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genome-wide Association Study
In genomics, a genome-wide association study (GWA study, or GWAS), also known as whole genome association study (WGA study, or WGAS), is an observational study of a genome-wide set of Single-nucleotide polymorphism, genetic variants in different individuals to see if any variant is associated with a trait. GWA studies typically focus on associations between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and traits like major human diseases, but can equally be applied to any other genetic variants and any other organisms. When applied to human data, GWA studies compare the DNA of participants having varying phenotypes for a particular trait or disease. These participants may be people with a disease (cases) and similar people without the disease (controls), or they may be people with different phenotypes for a particular trait, for example blood pressure. This approach is known as phenotype-first, in which the participants are classified first by their clinical manifestation(s), as oppose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science (journal)
''Science'', also widely referred to as ''Science Magazine'', is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and one of the world's top academic journals. It was first published in 1880, is currently circulated weekly and has a subscriber base of around 130,000. Because institutional subscriptions and online access serve a larger audience, its estimated readership is over 400,000 people. ''Science'' is based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a second office in Cambridge, UK. Contents The major focus of the journal is publishing important original scientific research and research reviews, but ''Science'' also publishes science-related news, opinions on science policy and other matters of interest to scientists and others who are concerned with the wide implications of science and technology. Unlike most scientific journals, which focus on a specific field, ''Science'' and its rival ''Nature (journal), Nature'' c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allele Frequency
Allele frequency, or gene frequency, is the relative frequency of an allele (variant of a gene) at a particular locus in a population, expressed as a fraction or percentage. Specifically, it is the fraction of all chromosomes in the population that carry that allele over the total population or sample size. Microevolution is the change in allele frequencies that occurs over time within a population. Given the following: # A particular locus on a chromosome and a given allele at that locus # A population of ''N'' individuals with ploidy ''n'', i.e. an individual carries ''n'' copies of each chromosome in their somatic cells (e.g. two chromosomes in the cells of diploid species) # The allele exists in ''i'' chromosomes in the population then the allele frequency is the fraction of all the occurrences ''i'' of that allele and the total number of chromosome copies across the population, ''i''/(''nN''). The allele frequency is distinct from the genotype frequency, although they are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whole Genome Sequencing
Whole genome sequencing (WGS), also known as full genome sequencing, complete genome sequencing, or entire genome sequencing, is the process of determining the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of the DNA sequence of an organism's genome at a single time. This entails sequencing all of an organism's chromosomal DNA as well as DNA contained in the mitochondrial DNA, mitochondria and, for plants, in the chloroplast. Whole genome sequencing has largely been used as a research tool, but was being introduced to clinics in 2014. In the future of personalized medicine, whole genome sequence data may be an important tool to guide therapeutic intervention. The tool of DNA sequencing, gene sequencing at Single-nucleotide polymorphism, SNP level is also used to pinpoint functional variants from association studies and improve the knowledge available to researchers interested in evolutionary biology, and hence may lay the foundation for predicting disease susceptibility and drug response. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exome Sequencing
Exome sequencing, also known as whole exome sequencing (WES), is a genomic technique for sequencing all of the protein-coding regions of genes in a genome (known as the exome). It consists of two steps: the first step is to select only the subset of DNA that encodes proteins. These regions are known as exons—humans have about 180,000 exons, constituting about 1% of the human genome, or approximately 30 million base pairs. The second step is to sequence the exonic DNA using any high-throughput DNA sequencing technology. The goal of this approach is to identify genetic variants that alter protein sequences, and to do this at a much lower cost than whole-genome sequencing. Since these variants can be responsible for both Mendelian and common polygenic diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, whole exome sequencing has been applied both in academic research and as a clinical diagnostic. Motivation and comparison to other approaches Exome sequencing is especially effective in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
