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Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic phenomenon that causes genes to be expressed or not, depending on whether they are inherited from the female or male parent. [1][2][3][4][5] Genes can also be partially imprinted. Partial imprinting occurs when alleles from both parents are differently expressed rather than complete expression and complete ...
The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a large locus on vertebrate DNA containing a set of closely linked polymorphic genes that code for cell surface proteins essential for the adaptive immune system. These cell surface proteins are called MHC molecules. The name of this locus comes from its discovery through the study of transplanted ...
Allele. An allele[1], or allelomorph, is a variant of the sequence of nucleotides at a particular location, or locus, on a DNA molecule. [2] Alleles can differ at a single position through single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), [3] but they can also have insertions and deletions of up to several thousand base pairs. [4]
A quantitative trait locus (QTL) is a region of DNA which is associated with a particular phenotypic trait, which varies in degree and which can be attributed to polygenic effects, i.e., the product of two or more genes, and their environment. [2] These QTLs are often found on different chromosomes. The number of QTLs which explain variation in ...
Gene–environment interaction. Gene–environment interaction (or genotype–environment interaction or G×E) is when two different genotypes respond to environmental variation in different ways. A norm of reaction is a graph that shows the relationship between genes and environmental factors when phenotypic differences are continuous. [1]
Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene. Early authors such as V. C. Wynne-Edwards and Konrad Lorenz argued that the behavior of animals could affect their survival and reproduction as groups, speaking for instance of ...
The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. [1] Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. [2] The number of alleles an individual can have in a specific gene depends on the number of copies of each chromosome found in that species, also ...
Genetic load. Genetic load is the difference between the fitness of an average genotype in a population and the fitness of some reference genotype, which may be either the best present in a population, or may be the theoretically optimal genotype. The average individual taken from a population with a low genetic load will generally, when grown ...