Pliang64

dbRIP, a database of retrotransposon insertion polymorphism in humans

Retrotransposons constitute over 40% of the human genome and consist of several millions of family members. They play important roles in shaping the structure and evolution of the genome and in participating in gene functioning and regulation. Since L1, Alu, and SVA retrotransposons are currently active in the human genome, their recent and ongoing retrotranspositional insertions generate a unique and important class of genetic polymorphisms (for the presence or absence of an insertion) among and within human populations. As such, they are also useful genetic markers in population genetics studies due to their identical-by-descent and essentially homoplasy-free nature. Additionally, some polymorphic insertions are known to be responsible for a variety of human genetic diseases.

dbRIP is a database of human Retrotransposon Insertion Polymorphisms (RIPs), in which RIPs data is highly integrated into the human genome annotation data provided by UCSC Genome Browser. dbRIP currently collects close to 3000 entries of known Alu, L1, SVA, and HERV polymorphic insertion loci in the human genome. dbRIP was initially developed by Ping Liang's group at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in collaboration with Mark Batzer's lab at Louisiana State University in 2006 . The database was later relocated to dbRIP.brock.ca, and as of Oct 6, 2010, obtained its permermnent URL at dbRIP.org.

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Pliang64 (talk) 02:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)