Gene dosage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gene dosage is the number of copies of a particular gene present in a genome.[1] Gene dosage is related to the amount of gene product (proteins or functional RNAs) the cell is able to express. Since a gene acts as a template, the number of templates in the cell contributes to the amount of gene product able to be produced. However, the amount of gene product produced in a cell is more commonly dependent on regulation of gene expression.[2] The normal gene dosage is dependent on the species; humans generally have two doses -- one copy from the mother and one from the father. Changes in gene dosage can be a result of copy number variation (gene insertions or gene deletions), or aneuploidy (chromosome number abnormalities). These changes can have significant phenotypic consequences.[1]