Question

1. The Human Genome Project has demonstrated that in humans of all races and nationalities approximately 99.9 percent of the genome sequence is the same, yet different individuals can be identified by DNA fingerprinting techniques. a. What is one primary variation in the human genome that can be used to distinguish different individuals

Answer 1

Answer:

Copy number variations (CNVs)

Explanation:

Copy number variations (CNV) are variations in the number of copies of specific nucleotide sequences present in the genome of organisms of the same species (or closely related species). The Human Genome Project showed that the human genome contains many CNVs, which are caused by duplications and deletions (indels) of large regions of repetitive (non-coding) DNA regions. Since CNV are usually localized in non-coding DNA regions, they generally are evolutionary neutral (i.e., prone to diverge among organisms) and therefore don't affect the phenotype of the individual. Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) represent another type of sequence variation that is abundant across the human genome.