47 DISEASE RISKS A SINGLE MOUTH SWAB CAN REVEAL
By Dr. Sanjida Ahmed, Director, Research, Eastern Biotech & Life Sciences, Dubai, UAE
GENETIC TRAIT AND DISEASE RISK We inherited two copies of the genetic blueprint necessary to create a human. One copy from your mother (one chromosome from each pair) and one copy from your father (the other chromosome from each pair). Our entire genetic blueprint, or genome, is made up of 23 pairs of chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA that are found in the nuclei of cells throughout our body. The 46 chromosomes found in just one of our cells are made up of about six billion (6,000,000,000) DNA nucleotides.
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www.lifesciencesmagazines.com Though the sequence of DNA
nucleotides in our chromosomes is very similar, there are of course differences between our genome and that of any other member of our species. A comparison of the genomes of two randomly selected humans would be
«Each of us is different because we carry a unique combination of genetic variants, including SNPs»
expected to reveal on average one difference every 1000 DNA nucleotides. It is these small genetic differences that account for the variation we find in human physical characteristics, such as appearance and disease risk. Thus the unique sequence of DNA nucleotides in our chromosomes constitutes our personal genome. A SNP, pronounced ‘snip’, is a single
variation in the nucleotide sequence of DNA and stands for Single Nucleotide Polymorphism that can affect our inherited risk and a multitude of other characteristics. Most of our features, internal and external
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