title: Genomic individuality and its biological implications.
abstract: It is a widely accepted fundamental concept that all somatic genomes of a human individual are identical to each other. The theoretical basis of this concept is that all of these somatic genomes are the descendants of the genome of a single fertilized cell as well as the simple replicated products of asexual reproduction, thus not forming any new recombined genomes. The question here is whether such a concept might only represent one side of somatic genome biology and, even worse, whether it has perhaps already led to a very prevalent misconception that within the organism body, there exists no variability among individual somatic genomes. A hypothesis, called genomic individuality, is proposed, simply saying that every individual somatic genome, perhaps with rare exceptions, has its own unique or individual 'genetic identity' or 'fingerprint', which is characterized by its distinctive sequences or patterns of deoxyribonucleic acid molecules, or both. Thus, no two somatic genomes can be identical to each other in every or all aspects, and consequently, there must be a great deal of genomic variation present within the body of any multicellular organism. The concept or hypothesis of genomic individuality would not only provide a more complete understanding of genome biology, but also suggest a new insight into the studies of the biology of cells and organisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital, CT 06520, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D014644:Genetic Variation; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008540:Meiosis; D008957:Models, Genetic; D012098:Reproduction