Zeitschrift für Pharmakogenomik und Pharmakoproteomik

Abstrakt

Gene Polymorphism

Shouji Shimoyama

Poly: By “poly”, we mean “multi” or “more than one”. Hence, genes having multiple traits, i.e. two or more than two traits, result in polymorphism. Morph: this is often a term that refers to varied forms or stages within the lifetime of an organism. The different forms or stages can also be stated as “morphs.” Polymorphic: The combined term refers to the existence of more than one form of traits in a species. A gene is claimed to be polymorphic if quite one allele occupies that gene's locus within a population. In addition to having quite one allele at a selected locus, each allele must also occur within the population at a rate of a minimum of 1% to generally be considered polymorphic. Polymorphism involves one among two or more variants of a specific DNA sequence. The most common sort of polymorphism involves variation at one nucleotide. Polymorphisms also can be much larger in size and involve long stretches of DNA.