Correlation Between Ethnicity and the Pv92 in Human Genome

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Correlation between Ethnicity and the PV92 in Human Genome HeeJin Kang and Misbah A. Pochi Townsend Harris High School Abstract Correlation between Ethnicity and the PV92 in Human Genome In the 19th century, an English naturalist named Charles Darwin suggested a theory that all organisms on Earth descended from a common ancestor. This theory can be supported in many different ways. For instance, phylogenetic tree, also known as an evolutionary tree, shows evolutionary relationships between organisms and the organismal lineages are represented by lines, or branches. These branches show different species, and groups of organisms that are located near a branch are closely related. But all organisms derive from a single strand, which indicates that every living thing has the same origin or ancestry. Genetic markers are genes or short DNA sequences used to identify a chromosome, and they can help link an inherited gene among individuals. Common ancestry is the idea that existing species and present day fossils trace back to a common ancestor. Short Interspersed Elements, or SINEs, are repetitive sequences of DNA that can integrate into distinct locations within a genome. Alu elements are a kind of SINE and they exist only in primates. But PV92, an Alu element, is specific to humans and it is thought to be a new insertion that entered the human genome only a few million years ago. The PV92 gene is located on Chromosome 16 and it is an intron, a molecule of RNA that does not code for a protein. Although PV92 may seem insignificant, it can provide great details about human ancestry. A person can either show absence or presence of the gene. Therefore, there are three possible genotypes for PV92: Homozygous dominant (+/+), heterozygous (+/-), and homozygous recessive (-,-). In addition, frequencies of PV92 in people from different origins will show the correlation

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