Variation Analysis

Introduction

Genetic variation or polymorphism

- the regular and simultaneous occurrence in a single interbreeding population of two or more discontinuous genotypes. The concept includes differences in genotypes ranging in size from a single nucleotide site (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) to large nucleotide sequences visible at a chromosomal level.

Basic classes of DNA variation

• Insertion-Deletion Length Polymorphism (INDEL)
• Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP)
• Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) Length Polymorphism (Mini- and Micro- Satellites)

Single Nucleotide Polymorphism

Importance of genetic variation analysis

• Early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of human diseases;
• Systematics and taxonomy
• Population, quantitative, and evolutionary genetics;
• Plant and animal breeding;
• Identifying individuals and populations (paternity and forensic analysis).

Resources

» dbSNP: the NCBI database of genetic variation

» About genetic variation in PubMed