Talk:Zygosity

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Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit · history · refresh · how to use this template) rated top as high school/SAT biology content - tameeria 15:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC) This article needs references. Homo- and heterozygote is a completely different concept from mono- and dizygotic. I think the distinction needs to be made clearer, possibly by splitting the article. - tameeria 20:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This article may be too technical for a general audience. Please help improve this article by providing more context and better explanations of technical details to make it more accessible, without removing technical details.

Contents 1 Allo- and Autozygous 2 Nullizygous 3 Split into three 3.1 Page merge 4 Confusing wording 5 Split article 6 simple examples would help

[edit] Allo- and Autozygous

I added the section about allozygosity and autozygosity, as they were requested articles. I forgot to sign in though... I do that a lot >_< Silver 01:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

There must be a different way to describe the difference between these terms - all alleles of a single gene are related by descent. Dr d12 20:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, life on this earth is related through a common descent, yet we can segregate. I think the problem and difference is in evolution of an entire species, there is speciation. We can see that two previously related animals can no longer mate. I think what we need to describe here is like… if a new species of horse and a new species of donkey both evolved wings. Since their common ancestor did not have wings, this is an example of convergent evolution. What we have to describe is something like this:

Allozygosity: ancestor allele 1 does not express trait A, and gives rise to allele 2 and allele 3, neither of which express trait A. Now, if allele 2 mutated to have trait A and allele 3 mutated to have trait A, those alleles are allozygous for trait A.

Autozygosity: ancestor allele 1 has trait A, and gives rise to allele 2 and allele 3, which have differences and as such are not the same allele, still have trait A, allele 2 and allele 3 are autozygous for trait A.

Now… I just have to figure out how to make that eloquent… Silver 20:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nullizygous

I believe that there is a nullizygosity where both alleles of a gene or chromosome are deleted or missing. It has implications in many cancers. http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/63/12/3021 cobalt 16:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split into three

Although the three subjects listed in the title are inter-related, they are quite simply that - three separate subjects. As such, they should clearly have three separate articles, as they have in other language versions of Wikipedia. No-one is going to search for any of these items using the current title, and although redirects exist, this is a lousy way of going about things. It also looks like sonmeone has done a copy and paste move of the article from elsewhere, rather than following Wikipedia policy and GFDL rules by doing a merge of page histories. In other words, it looks like someone has stuffed up majorly with this one. Grutness...wha? 00:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm somewhat new here, so I don't know the proper procedure for doing this, but I strongly second this. The current setup is absurd. Builderman 03:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I also agree. The page now has other sections added to it beyond the three in the title. cobalt 16:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Support as per the past three. Lunakeet 16:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Page merge

This was a Full-content paste merger of several pages (homozygote, hemizygote and heterozygote - and their relatives homozygous, heterozygous and hemizygous) after the instructions on Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages - see the page history. I know the title is long but "Zygosity" doesn't work (twins) - if you search for hemizygote (...) here you come. Wikipedia does not need a separate entry for every concept in the universe. Do you also think that Ploidy should be split into separate pages for haploid, diploid, polyploid, or that Muller's morphs is better covered in 6 or 7 articles called Amorph, hypomorph, hypermorph, antimorph, and neomorph, null, dominant negative... These are each simple concepts that can be described more efficiently in groups. Dr d12 15:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The original title of the merged page ("Homozygote, Heterozygote and Hemizygote") has been updated to "Zygosity" with an explanation of its application to genetics and twins. This was suggested by User:Kraikk in "my talk" User:Dr_d12. Dr d12 18:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, here are the talk pages from the merged pages (Hemizygous/hemizygote talk page didn't exist).

(1) Talk:Homozygote:

"Is homozygote and hemizygote the same? If no, what's the difference? massa 03:03, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

It's not. I've edited the article and reverted the redirect. I'm surprised incorrect information lasted so long.

Toph99 02:00, 16 August 2005 (UTC)"

(2) talk:Heterozygote:

"simple analysis: pair of allele for a characteristic are different e.g. Hh"

I think that it shouldn't be redirected form Heterozygosity as that is a measure of genetic variation as opposed to zygosity.

[edit] Confusing wording

This is not a subject I'm very familiar with, but I suspect the wording could be much improved. The opening paragraphs appear to give conflicting definitions of zygosity. The word, if I understand correctly, can be used in several senses and applied to (1) loci, (2) genes, (3) organisms, (4) genomes, (5) chromosomes, (6) twins, (7) alleles, and perhaps other things. The full range of its uses should be mentioned in the opening sentence.

I suspect, too, that zygosity can be used generally to refer to all the qualities expressed by adjectives ending in -zygous and nouns ending in -zygote.

Finally, the sentences beginning with a term followed by "is when" really ought to be reworded. That's no way to characterize a noun. D021317c 09:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Split article

I agree with what other editors on this talk page have allready stated. The terms homozygous, heterozygous and hemizygous require three seperate articles. At the very least section redirects. I guess it just needs someone to be bold.Sting_au | Talk 01:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] simple examples would help

I think clarity would be helped tremendously if some simple examples were added. Like how it would be when combining different eye colors or something. Because as it is now, there is a lot of jargon without much connection to how these things come to people via the media. I would do it myself if I would feel qualified. 212.153.56.10 (talk) 09:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)