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Three major single-chromosome mutations: deletion (1), duplication (2) and inversion (3). In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. [ 1 ] Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA.
Genetic diversity. A graphical representation of the typical human karyotype. Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species. It ranges widely, from the number of species to differences within species, and can be correlated to the span of survival for a species. [ 1 ]
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with artificial selection, which is ...
In genetics, a selective sweep is the process through which a new beneficial mutation that increases its frequency and becomes fixed (i.e., reaches a frequency of 1) in the population leads to the reduction or elimination of genetic variation among nucleotide sequences that are near the mutation. In selective sweep, positive selection causes ...
Approximately 2% of the human genome codes for proteins and a slightly larger fraction is involved in gene regulation. But most of the rest of the genome has no known function. If the environment remains stable, the beneficial mutations will spread throughout the local population over many generations until it becomes a dominant trait.
Human genetic variation is the genetic differences in and among populations. There may be multiple variants of any given gene in the human population (alleles), a situation called polymorphism. No two humans are genetically identical. Even monozygotic twins (who develop from one zygote) have infrequent genetic differences due to mutations ...
Beneficial nonsense mutations increase the overall fitness and reproductive success of an organism, opposite of the effects of a deleterious mutation. [2] [8] Because a nonsense mutation introduces a premature stop codon within a sequence of DNA, it is extremely unlikely that this scenario can actually benefit the organism. [1] An example of ...
A heterozygote advantage describes the case in which the heterozygous genotype has a higher relative fitness than either the homozygous dominant or homozygous recessive genotype. Loci exhibiting heterozygote advantage are a small minority of loci. [ 1 ] The specific case of heterozygote advantage due to a single locus is known as overdominance ...