Talk:Genetic marker

Note

that "genetic marker", in a medical dictionary, will have a definition like:
genetic marker n. A gene phenotypically associated with a particular, easily identified trait and
used to identify an individual or cell carrying that gene

but in geneology studies, it mostly refers to "junk DNA" areas.

A marker isn't necessarily associated with a phenotype. It's just a "unique" sequence. That is, di, tri, and tetranucleotide repeats aren't unique in the usual sense. But the number of repeats can make it a good identifier. Also, the uniqueness needn't be global. Usually we're only concerned with a small sub-population. The markers must be somewhat unique within the sub-population in order to be of any use. If it's a marker than everyone has, it's not a marker, just part of the normal DNA sequence. neffk 03:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this page needs work: the above comment was more directly helpful to me than the article. Is anyone working on this? wasserperson 21:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Looks like no one is. I came here looking for a mention of "neutral genetic markers" (aka "junk DNA"), but found none. —Pengo 04:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Isozymes not genetic markers?

The article Isozymes says that isozymes are genetic markers, but describes them as being enzymes with the same function but coming from different loci, while this article states that genetic markers have to be easily identifiable, associate with a specific locus . I'm confused.

In my opinion the present article Genetic markersneeds major editing. A general issue is that the concept of genetic markers should be kept separate from that of selectable marker gene. The paragraph about insulin production refers to the latter, and should be removed. In fact, genetic markers mark a chromosomal site and, in the modern sense, they are not necessarily genes.

Exapmples of other mistakes: in 'Types': The sentences "A primer amplifying ..." should rather be "A primer pair amplifying ...". The sentence "detection of markers can be direct by RNA sequencing..." should rather be "detection of markers can be direct by DNA sequencing..." Daniele Rosellini (talk) 07:31, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

It should not be merged

Both of them are different. One can infer it from the difference in both their definitions itself. Atul Kaushal 16:50, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

TV fuel ad

2016.09.02 There is an ad on TV about 7 fuel additives. the last is marker molecules. What are they talking about? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.91.132.120 (talk) 13:16, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Figure needs deletion

A figure related SFP markers (which do not have their now wikipedia page) was added to the list of genetic markers. This figure should deleted as it add nothing to the content of the article. SFPs a relatively recent markers (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0705323104) related to gene expression arrays. The figure could be used in a page that describes the SFP methodology. For now, I request that it be deleted. Frogzrcoolkelsey (talk) 01:22, 9 February 2026 (UTC)