GENETICS QUESTION - Need a few pointers.... (Sep/17/2006 )

G,day people,

I was wondering if any geneticists on here could give me a few pointers to what I should write about for the following question:

“There are two major requirements that need to be met in order to conduct genetic linkage analysis for a particular human genetic trait: i) genome –wide coverage of markers, and ii) enough informative meiosis for conclusive evidence. For each requirement discuss why it is necessary and the things that determine whether or not the requirement is met”

I do not wish for anyone to give me the answer to this question as this doesn’t excel my learning. What I would like is if someone can give me a few pointers as I have really no clear idea what this question is asking. If I get some guidance on what the questions is asking for and what things I should be looking at then that’s what im after.

Thanks in advance

-Dave-

The question is asking...
Lets say you were looking for gene that caused a particular genetic disease. And for some reason you wanted to look for that gene by linkage analysis.
Explain why do you need markers all over the genome.
Explain why do you need enough meiosis events, to make use of said markers.

First you need to read up on linkage analysis. How does this method work? Can you tell me the basic idea behind this method. Once you can tell me the basic workings of this method, then remember that a human genome is not the tidiest of things. It looks like a very fragmented harddrive.


Hope this helps.

Yep thanks for that. My genetics worksheet paper isn’t due for a month (got two weeks of holidays now) but once i get some other assignments out of the way ill read up on it and if i have any problems ill definitely post them up.

Thanks for the pointers again, much appreciated

Cheers

-Dave-