single nucleotide polymorphism
1 answer
A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is a variation in a single nucleotide (A, T, C, or G) at a specific position in the genome that occurs with a relatively high frequency in a population. SNPs can occur in both coding and non-coding regions of the genome and can have functional consequences such as affecting gene expression or protein structure and function. SNPs are important in genetics and genomics because they can be used as genetic markers to track disease susceptibility, identify population ancestry, and study evolutionary relationships.