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"...An allele is one member of a pair or series of different forms of a gene. Usually alleles are coding sequences, but sometimes the term is used to refer to a non-coding sequence..." Who is the individual that formally established this and where did he do this ? TongueSpeaker ( talk) 12:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
What I am missing from the page is that the fact that allele has actually two related meanings, and both are used in different communities. The first meaning is the one that is described here in detail, and is most commonly used, namely: the gene variant found or inferred at a particular locus. In this meaning, there can be hundreds of different alleles, as e.g in the case of the HLA locus. In this case it makes sense to talk about 'different alleles', and 'allele' uniquely identifies a particular variant (in fact, DNA sequence), in of course the context of a locus in a diploid organism. The article, incidentally, can be 'an' and 'the'.
The second meaning is becoming more prominent in our era of next generation sequencing and single-cell sequencing. Here, allele identifies which of the two homologous chromosomes is being talked about (again in the context of a particular locus in a diploid organism). In this usage, it does not make sense to talk about 'different alleles', since there always only two alleles: the maternal and paternal (even though often it is not known which is which). In this usage, 'allele' often occurs with 'other' or 'other allele' and always with 'the' as the article, never 'a'. E.g. /info/en/?search=Dominance_%28genetics%29 has: "The allele that masks the other is said to be dominant to the latter, and the allele that is masked is said to be recessive to the former." Here, we are not talking about the fact that there many different variants of a particular gene, but about the fact that the version in one chromosome dominates the version of the other.
Why the distinction is important is that people get confused by terms such as monoallelic mutation or biallelic expression. These terms are perfectly normal and perfectly understable with the second meaning, but make no sense when only knowing the first meaning (monoallelic mutation is a mutation observed in one of the two homologous chromosomes in a particular locus, rendering the locus heterozygous; biallelic expression is when transcription takes place at both copies of a locus).
Personally I think in many cases when people use the word 'allele', they had better use the term 'gene variant', which is even understandable to the uninitiated. I vaguely recall that in Matt Ridley's book 'Genome', there is a line that says roughly: "genes do not cause disease, alleles do!", reflecting the first meaning. I think this sentence becomes both much clearer and much more precise if it read "genes do not cause disease, (broken) gene variants do!" :-)
What do people think? Plijnzaad ( talk) 08:00, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
PS: citation needed? "humans are diploid organisms and have two alleles at each genetic locus, with one allele inherited from each parent", see Note in http://varnomen.hgvs.org/recommendations/DNA/variant/alleles/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plijnzaad ( talk • contribs) 08:17, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Non-gene DNA loci are important to the phenotype,
so talking about those alleles is important, and DNA fingerprinting relies on hypervariable DNA in non-coding regions, and those variations are referred to as alleles. Also, a locus may be large or small, from single-nucleotide polymorphism alleles (possibly several within one gene), to larger loci that have some particular function that turn out to contain a group of tightly linked genes. An allele difference may be an inversion or a deletion. I therefore disagree that "gene variant" is a better phrase.
OK, it has been a while since I came across this, but the McCarrol & Altshuler paper you reference uses the term 'multiallelic' in the 'gene variant'-sense of the word, namely: a locus for which more than two variants are known (cf. a Triallelic SNP ). I cannot find a reputable reference where the copies of a CNV are called different alleles. Note that triallelic or multiallelic expression are used for non-diploid organisms (see e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.07.096 ) and in the human HeLa cell line which is known to be polyploid (see e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2008.05.052 ). Regarding your idea that 'haplotype' is used to distinguish the paternally and maternally-inherited copy of one gene: that is certainly not in common use for single genes, only for larger genomic regions. So, I think it is high time that the wiki article includes a paragraph on the other meaning of the term 'allele', namely the 'haplotype-identifying sense'. This really is not controversial, and should be helpful to many people, all the more since we now can measure these things more and more accurately and finding them to be important in many ways. (The haplotype-identifying meaning maybe well be closer to what Bateson & Saunders intended, since they based it on the Greek άλλο which is 'other' (of two), not 'different' or 'variant'. But I haven't read there original paper. Interestingly, another term coined by Bateson, epistasis has two related meanings that are commonly (conf)used) Plijnzaad ( talk) 14:57, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
"... if the "red" allele is dominant to the "white" allele, in a heterozygous flower (with one red and one white allele), the petals will be white."
My genetics is very rusty, but surely the petals in this case will be red?
P GG + gg F1 Gg
'The petals will definitely be red '
As a newcomer to Wikipedia I wonder if it would be appropriate to note that the word rhymes with 'heel' and not 'ukelele'.
How does the ribosomes, etc. recognise which is a dominant gene, which is a recessive one, or which sequences trigger it to be recessive or dominant in the first place? Do we know? -- Natalinasmpf 08:31, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
"As a newcomer to Wikipedia I wonder if it would be appropriate to note that the word rhymes with 'heel' and not 'ukelele'"
YES! this is my Daughters name and everery one alway pronounces it "Ah-Lay-Lee" When its pronounced "Ah-Lee-uhl". Thanks for pointing this out...
It is incorrect to say that one allele is dominant over another. It is the phenotype that is dominant. In the flower example, it is the character red that is dominant over white. In humans, for instance, being pigmented is dominant over being albino, meaning that heterozygotes are pigmented and are not intermediate in phenotype between the two homozygotes. However, if one goes to the molecular level, the underlying enzyme defect concerns tyrosinase. When one looks at the inheritance of the character "tyrosinase activity", there is no dominance, the heterozygote being completely intermediate between the two homozygotes. This is an improper use of nomenclature that unfortunately even can be found in many genetics texts. -- Crusio 20:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
An Allel would be the like the controller of game systems the comand the genes where to go.I don't have an example off the top of my head, but the defintion in the first sentence of the article points out that some definitions of Allele include variation at non-gene sequences. I double checked the fact with the NHGRI ( http://www.genome.gov/glossary.cfm?key=allele see the real player voice over). I would suggest perhaps something about variation in promotor regions as was described so ably by Graft above. My defintion of an Allele is the captian of the genes telling them where to go.
What is the reasoning behind using capital I and i to stand for the different blood types and what is the reasoning for i to always match up with blood type O? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.176.81.1 ( talk) 16:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
The capital I is used for the dominant genes, while the lower case i is used for recessive. That's why blood type O is so rare. 18:49, 28 September 2009
I would like to ask about the following sentence:
"An organism in which the two copies of the gene are identical"
Can COPIES be unidentical? Is the term appropriate and correct?
Should one start a paragraph with a sentence enclosed in parentheses? I have never seen this before. 06:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
This sounds very silly since Equation 1 clearly implies that equation 2 is also true. Does it make sense to say that the frequency of 2 alleles is predicted by 2 equations? Why not 3 with the third being ?
This is indeed a very muddled section. It mixes the frequency of certain alleles ( and ) with the alleles themselves. The main article on the Hardy-weinberg equilibrium is clearer and perhaps this whole paragraph should be deleted and redirect to that article. -- Crusio 20:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how this can be true:
Because
If then
If then
If then
Am I missing something?
76.121.251.78 (
talk)
01:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
This section is still rather muddled after I did some cleanup. I propose to delete it, thre is already a link to dominance and recessive in the opening paragraph. -- Crusio ( talk) 10:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
-- It is ok to map alleles to the inheritance model of the trait, it is not really a mistake. Originally, phenotypes were thought as markers of the genetic factors that controlled them. Now we are quite aware that most phenotypes are complex and we cannot speak of phenotypes as markers of a gene or a locus. Notice Mendel spoke about genetic factors, the word gene and allele did not exist yet (the word allele was not invented by Bateson but by a a German or Austrian scientist that I forgot his name). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.120.117 ( talk) 20:09, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
--I don't think this warrents the tag as this appears to be pretty minor and almost seems to be about semantics, so have now removed the tag. When I saw the tag I assumed there was a major error. It would probably be better to add this to the article. Any other comments? 194.83.139.177 ( talk) 11:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
I think the article should read most animals, or perhaps most multicellular organisms, but not most organisms, as most archaea and bacteria are not diploid, and they are arguably the most well represented (depending of course on your definition of species). 71.209.2.169 ( talk) 19:26, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Even using multicellular organisms isn't really accurate in my opinion, as a lot of Plantae are polyploïd.
I'm sorry for all the unnecessary edits. I don't usually need so many edits just to revert to a previous version... But during the editing my internet connection was unstable, and I clicked on save page and nothing happened, I did something else, and suddenly the edit was saved even though I was not finished with it, and furthermore I suspect I sometimes got a "cache-version" of the page, which is why I thought things needed to be fixed that didn't need to be fixed. However, 60.240.109.108's edit was clearly improductive (removing text and instead writing that something was wrong), but also EagerToddler39's edit was incorrect, because the footnote was not unused. However, I did not realize did until I copied EagerToddler39's edit and discovered that there was a problem in the ref-section.
Anyway, the article is back to a previous version now.
Lova Falk
talk
10:02, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
The term used by Greeks, way back when, was in regards to generation (like the generations distinguished by terms like ""grandparent", "parent" and "child" . It is related to the term "genetics" but I think a distinction should be made between "generations" and "genetics" as noting phenotypic inheritance from parents is not to have knowledge of genetics. The difference between having actual knowledge of the two subjects "generation" and "genetics" can be night and day, as in knowledge of generations but not genetics by today's understanding of the life and the world it inhabits is akin to knowing a story but not being able to tell what IS real and what is not. There is a difference between the actual occurrence in the present and the story of it retold as history. Their is a difference between being affected by the occurrence happening to You, and the effect of listening to a person's story that you yourself did not experience and not being able to tell the difference is to not be able to distinguish what Is real from what is not. The etymology of a word is NOT synonymous with intimate knowledge of the topic. There was no ancient Greek word or even root for "genetics" even though the words relation is obvious.
Not being conscious of your thoughts and word choice in encyclopedic writing is detrimental mistake to make, and will lead to unfathomable levels of confusion and misery, EVEN IS EVERY SINGLE WORD WRITTEN IS TRUE. Similar topics or words that describe a topic, when the words come from languages which serve different purposes cannot be used interchangeably.
As for as Understanding Everything, using words like "genetics" in terms of Ancient Greek knowledge of "generations" brings about complete misunderstanding of fundamental core knowledge, it fosters confusion. It's the difference between between two understanding the books like the Bible wherein the first book is titled Genesis and the understanding of it with the first book titled Genus
This is not knocking Greeks, to be fair Latin terms from the etymology of "genetics" are just as unrelated as the night and day difference between "generations" and "genetics"
Both languages have terms to describe the topic "genetics" and they could tell stories about genetics, but they did not have the vocabulary because they did not understand genetics. It could be said that neither had knowledge of it's existence. So to employ sentences like...oh I stand corrected, as the article now has that wording omitted without admitting to it under the historical records. Yeah wikipedia Gods. Dirtclustit ( talk) 01:47, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I remember from all those CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episodes I watched, that the number of matching alleles determine the biological relationship between two persons. Call me a dumb-bunny (I don't mind), but I don't understand how that relationship thing works and the articles seem not to mention that aspect of allele-ism. Thank you for your time, Wordreader ( talk) 00:08, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Substantial conceptual overlap, but Allele frequency strays into textbook, demonstrative territory. Having one centralized article is better than having multiple parallel strands of a topic, in my opinion, and neither articles are long enough to warrant a size-related split. --Animalparty-- ( talk) 19:08, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Should we explicitly say one allele can include many SNPs - eg as used in CYP3A7*1C Allele Associated With Poor Outcomes in CLL, Breast, and Lung Cancer ? - Rod57 ( talk) 16:08, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Allele/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Rated "high" as high school/SAT biology content. This article needs an explanation what an allele is from a molecular biology perspective. The current explanation is extremely insufficient. - tameeria 23:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC) grammar: "classical genetics recognizes three alleles... that determines compatibility" -- should be "determine" not "determines" (noun-verb agreement) |
Last edited at 15:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC). Substituted at 07:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
The section above Two different meanings of allele seems not to have been concluded.
Wiki is meant for general readers, so not written just for those already competent in genetics. I was looking to Wiki for some brief clarity on genetic evolution. My helicopter view is that genes mutate and this (together with drift) via selection drives evolution. But the article on evolution refers copiously to alleles so I wanted to check I understood correctly.
The question I couldn't find answered though, and which I think should be answered by the introductory paragraph, is when is a gene a different gene and when is it the same gene but with different alleles??
Another question that arises from that Talk section is what are Non-gene DNA loci? I thought that genes were DNA, but if so the phrase would be the equivalent of Non-forest wood tree. Can someone clarify?
Making technical writting succint is extremely demanding (at least I find it so!) but articles should still aim to progress from general overview to technical detail (wiki policy). At the moment though there seems to me to be a tendency to make them lean increasingly towards the sort of CYA perfectionism that plagues legal documents. Be bold?
LookingGlass ( talk) 15:00, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
An allele is commonly defined as a an "alternate DNA sequence at a locus" where locus refers to any stretch of DNA. What this means is that alleles are not confined to genes. There can be alleles at regulatory sequences, origins of replications, SARS, and all other functional DNA sequences in the genome. There can also be alleles in junk DNA. SNPs are alleles.
Evolution is a change in the frequency of alleles in a population and that's not confined to genes. The human and chimp genomes have evolved since the split from the common ancestors and most of the differences are due to the fixation of neutral alleles in junk DNA by random genetic drift. Nobody reading this article would be able to understand that statement.
We need to change the definition of "allele" to reflect the meaning that was established more than 50 years ago. Genome42 ( talk) 20:05, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
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"...An allele is one member of a pair or series of different forms of a gene. Usually alleles are coding sequences, but sometimes the term is used to refer to a non-coding sequence..." Who is the individual that formally established this and where did he do this ? TongueSpeaker ( talk) 12:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
What I am missing from the page is that the fact that allele has actually two related meanings, and both are used in different communities. The first meaning is the one that is described here in detail, and is most commonly used, namely: the gene variant found or inferred at a particular locus. In this meaning, there can be hundreds of different alleles, as e.g in the case of the HLA locus. In this case it makes sense to talk about 'different alleles', and 'allele' uniquely identifies a particular variant (in fact, DNA sequence), in of course the context of a locus in a diploid organism. The article, incidentally, can be 'an' and 'the'.
The second meaning is becoming more prominent in our era of next generation sequencing and single-cell sequencing. Here, allele identifies which of the two homologous chromosomes is being talked about (again in the context of a particular locus in a diploid organism). In this usage, it does not make sense to talk about 'different alleles', since there always only two alleles: the maternal and paternal (even though often it is not known which is which). In this usage, 'allele' often occurs with 'other' or 'other allele' and always with 'the' as the article, never 'a'. E.g. /info/en/?search=Dominance_%28genetics%29 has: "The allele that masks the other is said to be dominant to the latter, and the allele that is masked is said to be recessive to the former." Here, we are not talking about the fact that there many different variants of a particular gene, but about the fact that the version in one chromosome dominates the version of the other.
Why the distinction is important is that people get confused by terms such as monoallelic mutation or biallelic expression. These terms are perfectly normal and perfectly understable with the second meaning, but make no sense when only knowing the first meaning (monoallelic mutation is a mutation observed in one of the two homologous chromosomes in a particular locus, rendering the locus heterozygous; biallelic expression is when transcription takes place at both copies of a locus).
Personally I think in many cases when people use the word 'allele', they had better use the term 'gene variant', which is even understandable to the uninitiated. I vaguely recall that in Matt Ridley's book 'Genome', there is a line that says roughly: "genes do not cause disease, alleles do!", reflecting the first meaning. I think this sentence becomes both much clearer and much more precise if it read "genes do not cause disease, (broken) gene variants do!" :-)
What do people think? Plijnzaad ( talk) 08:00, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
PS: citation needed? "humans are diploid organisms and have two alleles at each genetic locus, with one allele inherited from each parent", see Note in http://varnomen.hgvs.org/recommendations/DNA/variant/alleles/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plijnzaad ( talk • contribs) 08:17, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Non-gene DNA loci are important to the phenotype,
so talking about those alleles is important, and DNA fingerprinting relies on hypervariable DNA in non-coding regions, and those variations are referred to as alleles. Also, a locus may be large or small, from single-nucleotide polymorphism alleles (possibly several within one gene), to larger loci that have some particular function that turn out to contain a group of tightly linked genes. An allele difference may be an inversion or a deletion. I therefore disagree that "gene variant" is a better phrase.
OK, it has been a while since I came across this, but the McCarrol & Altshuler paper you reference uses the term 'multiallelic' in the 'gene variant'-sense of the word, namely: a locus for which more than two variants are known (cf. a Triallelic SNP ). I cannot find a reputable reference where the copies of a CNV are called different alleles. Note that triallelic or multiallelic expression are used for non-diploid organisms (see e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.07.096 ) and in the human HeLa cell line which is known to be polyploid (see e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2008.05.052 ). Regarding your idea that 'haplotype' is used to distinguish the paternally and maternally-inherited copy of one gene: that is certainly not in common use for single genes, only for larger genomic regions. So, I think it is high time that the wiki article includes a paragraph on the other meaning of the term 'allele', namely the 'haplotype-identifying sense'. This really is not controversial, and should be helpful to many people, all the more since we now can measure these things more and more accurately and finding them to be important in many ways. (The haplotype-identifying meaning maybe well be closer to what Bateson & Saunders intended, since they based it on the Greek άλλο which is 'other' (of two), not 'different' or 'variant'. But I haven't read there original paper. Interestingly, another term coined by Bateson, epistasis has two related meanings that are commonly (conf)used) Plijnzaad ( talk) 14:57, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
"... if the "red" allele is dominant to the "white" allele, in a heterozygous flower (with one red and one white allele), the petals will be white."
My genetics is very rusty, but surely the petals in this case will be red?
P GG + gg F1 Gg
'The petals will definitely be red '
As a newcomer to Wikipedia I wonder if it would be appropriate to note that the word rhymes with 'heel' and not 'ukelele'.
How does the ribosomes, etc. recognise which is a dominant gene, which is a recessive one, or which sequences trigger it to be recessive or dominant in the first place? Do we know? -- Natalinasmpf 08:31, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
"As a newcomer to Wikipedia I wonder if it would be appropriate to note that the word rhymes with 'heel' and not 'ukelele'"
YES! this is my Daughters name and everery one alway pronounces it "Ah-Lay-Lee" When its pronounced "Ah-Lee-uhl". Thanks for pointing this out...
It is incorrect to say that one allele is dominant over another. It is the phenotype that is dominant. In the flower example, it is the character red that is dominant over white. In humans, for instance, being pigmented is dominant over being albino, meaning that heterozygotes are pigmented and are not intermediate in phenotype between the two homozygotes. However, if one goes to the molecular level, the underlying enzyme defect concerns tyrosinase. When one looks at the inheritance of the character "tyrosinase activity", there is no dominance, the heterozygote being completely intermediate between the two homozygotes. This is an improper use of nomenclature that unfortunately even can be found in many genetics texts. -- Crusio 20:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
An Allel would be the like the controller of game systems the comand the genes where to go.I don't have an example off the top of my head, but the defintion in the first sentence of the article points out that some definitions of Allele include variation at non-gene sequences. I double checked the fact with the NHGRI ( http://www.genome.gov/glossary.cfm?key=allele see the real player voice over). I would suggest perhaps something about variation in promotor regions as was described so ably by Graft above. My defintion of an Allele is the captian of the genes telling them where to go.
What is the reasoning behind using capital I and i to stand for the different blood types and what is the reasoning for i to always match up with blood type O? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.176.81.1 ( talk) 16:10, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
The capital I is used for the dominant genes, while the lower case i is used for recessive. That's why blood type O is so rare. 18:49, 28 September 2009
I would like to ask about the following sentence:
"An organism in which the two copies of the gene are identical"
Can COPIES be unidentical? Is the term appropriate and correct?
Should one start a paragraph with a sentence enclosed in parentheses? I have never seen this before. 06:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
This sounds very silly since Equation 1 clearly implies that equation 2 is also true. Does it make sense to say that the frequency of 2 alleles is predicted by 2 equations? Why not 3 with the third being ?
This is indeed a very muddled section. It mixes the frequency of certain alleles ( and ) with the alleles themselves. The main article on the Hardy-weinberg equilibrium is clearer and perhaps this whole paragraph should be deleted and redirect to that article. -- Crusio 20:11, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how this can be true:
Because
If then
If then
If then
Am I missing something?
76.121.251.78 (
talk)
01:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
This section is still rather muddled after I did some cleanup. I propose to delete it, thre is already a link to dominance and recessive in the opening paragraph. -- Crusio ( talk) 10:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
-- It is ok to map alleles to the inheritance model of the trait, it is not really a mistake. Originally, phenotypes were thought as markers of the genetic factors that controlled them. Now we are quite aware that most phenotypes are complex and we cannot speak of phenotypes as markers of a gene or a locus. Notice Mendel spoke about genetic factors, the word gene and allele did not exist yet (the word allele was not invented by Bateson but by a a German or Austrian scientist that I forgot his name). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.120.117 ( talk) 20:09, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
--I don't think this warrents the tag as this appears to be pretty minor and almost seems to be about semantics, so have now removed the tag. When I saw the tag I assumed there was a major error. It would probably be better to add this to the article. Any other comments? 194.83.139.177 ( talk) 11:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
I think the article should read most animals, or perhaps most multicellular organisms, but not most organisms, as most archaea and bacteria are not diploid, and they are arguably the most well represented (depending of course on your definition of species). 71.209.2.169 ( talk) 19:26, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
Even using multicellular organisms isn't really accurate in my opinion, as a lot of Plantae are polyploïd.
I'm sorry for all the unnecessary edits. I don't usually need so many edits just to revert to a previous version... But during the editing my internet connection was unstable, and I clicked on save page and nothing happened, I did something else, and suddenly the edit was saved even though I was not finished with it, and furthermore I suspect I sometimes got a "cache-version" of the page, which is why I thought things needed to be fixed that didn't need to be fixed. However, 60.240.109.108's edit was clearly improductive (removing text and instead writing that something was wrong), but also EagerToddler39's edit was incorrect, because the footnote was not unused. However, I did not realize did until I copied EagerToddler39's edit and discovered that there was a problem in the ref-section.
Anyway, the article is back to a previous version now.
Lova Falk
talk
10:02, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
The term used by Greeks, way back when, was in regards to generation (like the generations distinguished by terms like ""grandparent", "parent" and "child" . It is related to the term "genetics" but I think a distinction should be made between "generations" and "genetics" as noting phenotypic inheritance from parents is not to have knowledge of genetics. The difference between having actual knowledge of the two subjects "generation" and "genetics" can be night and day, as in knowledge of generations but not genetics by today's understanding of the life and the world it inhabits is akin to knowing a story but not being able to tell what IS real and what is not. There is a difference between the actual occurrence in the present and the story of it retold as history. Their is a difference between being affected by the occurrence happening to You, and the effect of listening to a person's story that you yourself did not experience and not being able to tell the difference is to not be able to distinguish what Is real from what is not. The etymology of a word is NOT synonymous with intimate knowledge of the topic. There was no ancient Greek word or even root for "genetics" even though the words relation is obvious.
Not being conscious of your thoughts and word choice in encyclopedic writing is detrimental mistake to make, and will lead to unfathomable levels of confusion and misery, EVEN IS EVERY SINGLE WORD WRITTEN IS TRUE. Similar topics or words that describe a topic, when the words come from languages which serve different purposes cannot be used interchangeably.
As for as Understanding Everything, using words like "genetics" in terms of Ancient Greek knowledge of "generations" brings about complete misunderstanding of fundamental core knowledge, it fosters confusion. It's the difference between between two understanding the books like the Bible wherein the first book is titled Genesis and the understanding of it with the first book titled Genus
This is not knocking Greeks, to be fair Latin terms from the etymology of "genetics" are just as unrelated as the night and day difference between "generations" and "genetics"
Both languages have terms to describe the topic "genetics" and they could tell stories about genetics, but they did not have the vocabulary because they did not understand genetics. It could be said that neither had knowledge of it's existence. So to employ sentences like...oh I stand corrected, as the article now has that wording omitted without admitting to it under the historical records. Yeah wikipedia Gods. Dirtclustit ( talk) 01:47, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
I remember from all those CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episodes I watched, that the number of matching alleles determine the biological relationship between two persons. Call me a dumb-bunny (I don't mind), but I don't understand how that relationship thing works and the articles seem not to mention that aspect of allele-ism. Thank you for your time, Wordreader ( talk) 00:08, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Substantial conceptual overlap, but Allele frequency strays into textbook, demonstrative territory. Having one centralized article is better than having multiple parallel strands of a topic, in my opinion, and neither articles are long enough to warrant a size-related split. --Animalparty-- ( talk) 19:08, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Should we explicitly say one allele can include many SNPs - eg as used in CYP3A7*1C Allele Associated With Poor Outcomes in CLL, Breast, and Lung Cancer ? - Rod57 ( talk) 16:08, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Allele/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Rated "high" as high school/SAT biology content. This article needs an explanation what an allele is from a molecular biology perspective. The current explanation is extremely insufficient. - tameeria 23:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC) grammar: "classical genetics recognizes three alleles... that determines compatibility" -- should be "determine" not "determines" (noun-verb agreement) |
Last edited at 15:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC). Substituted at 07:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
The section above Two different meanings of allele seems not to have been concluded.
Wiki is meant for general readers, so not written just for those already competent in genetics. I was looking to Wiki for some brief clarity on genetic evolution. My helicopter view is that genes mutate and this (together with drift) via selection drives evolution. But the article on evolution refers copiously to alleles so I wanted to check I understood correctly.
The question I couldn't find answered though, and which I think should be answered by the introductory paragraph, is when is a gene a different gene and when is it the same gene but with different alleles??
Another question that arises from that Talk section is what are Non-gene DNA loci? I thought that genes were DNA, but if so the phrase would be the equivalent of Non-forest wood tree. Can someone clarify?
Making technical writting succint is extremely demanding (at least I find it so!) but articles should still aim to progress from general overview to technical detail (wiki policy). At the moment though there seems to me to be a tendency to make them lean increasingly towards the sort of CYA perfectionism that plagues legal documents. Be bold?
LookingGlass ( talk) 15:00, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
An allele is commonly defined as a an "alternate DNA sequence at a locus" where locus refers to any stretch of DNA. What this means is that alleles are not confined to genes. There can be alleles at regulatory sequences, origins of replications, SARS, and all other functional DNA sequences in the genome. There can also be alleles in junk DNA. SNPs are alleles.
Evolution is a change in the frequency of alleles in a population and that's not confined to genes. The human and chimp genomes have evolved since the split from the common ancestors and most of the differences are due to the fixation of neutral alleles in junk DNA by random genetic drift. Nobody reading this article would be able to understand that statement.
We need to change the definition of "allele" to reflect the meaning that was established more than 50 years ago. Genome42 ( talk) 20:05, 3 August 2022 (UTC)