There’s no ‘warrior gene’…but there may be a warrior genotype

I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but you don’t have a gene for being tall, or a gene for caffeine addiction or a gene for intelligence. No one does.

In an effort to simplify the science, the media sometimes talks about genetics and the influence of genes in these terms. But there is not a “breast cancer gene,” or a “warrior gene.”

It’s much more complicated than that. With a few exceptions, everyone has the same genes. But within these genes, there are slight variations — different genotypes — and it’s those small variations that makes us all unique.

Think of your DNA as one long string. A very, very long string that’s crammed into every cell in your body. This string is broken into many segments with each segment serving a different purpose. These segments of DNA are called genes.

Genes provide instructions for your body to produce different proteins. Proteins influence nearly every function of your body. Some proteins effect visible traits like the color of your eyes.  Others prompt biological functions from the ability to lift your arm to intricate cell processes.

With only a few exceptions, everyone has the same genes, so it’s not the presence or absence of a gene that is variable. It’s what is within those genes that is different. Each gene contains many positions, and each position is associated with a single genotype. It is the genotypes on a particular gene that make all the difference.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: All About that Base (Pair): The Significance of your Genotypes

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