韩国首尔大学基因医学研究所徐廷瑄教授领导的研究小组宣称，他们通过对30名中国人、韩国人和日本人的基因组研究，成功绘制出中日韩人种超高清基因拷贝数变异图谱，并根据该图谱发现，亚洲人独有的基因拷贝数变异共有3500多个。
所谓基因拷贝数变异(Copy Number Vriations)是指在人类基因组中广泛存在的，从1000bp(碱基对)到数百万bp范围内的缺失、插入、重复和复杂多位点的变异。研究表明，不少人类复杂性状疾病都和拷贝数变异有密切关系。
2006年，第一张人类基因组第一代基因拷贝数变异图谱问世。这张遗传图谱是通过对欧洲、非洲和亚洲祖先4个人群的270个个体样品进行分析，用两个互补的技术——单核苷酸多态性(SNPs)基因分型和以克隆为基础的比较基因组杂交进行基因拷贝数变异筛选，获得了一共1447个拷贝数变异。
之后的一系列研究显示，基因拷贝数变异是个体之间在基因组序列差异上的一个重要源泉，是研究基因组进化和表型差异的一个重要因素。许多关于基因拷贝数变异的研究结果表明，拷贝数变异可导致不同程度的基因表达差异，对正常表型的构成及疾病的发生发展具有一定作用。拷贝数变异研究在法医学方面也具有重要意义，在探索法医学个体识别的遗传变异时不能忽略拷贝数变异这一基因组多样性的新形式。
首尔大学医学院此次绘制的基因拷贝数变异图谱与西方绘制的现有图谱不同，是只针对中日韩人种进行研究并绘制完成的，将有效适用于特定人群的疾病诊疗，并为今后正式研究基因拷贝数变异和疾病之间的关联性提供了良好平台。
当第一张人类基因组草图问世时，我们对这一划时代的成就充满期待，渴望它在医学诊断、预防和治疗方面，能够迅速兑现基因组研究的初衷。10年过去了，我们发现那不过是生命科学这部天书的扉页。基因组测序现已不算难事，科学家面临的更大挑战，是从浩繁的基因组序列中找到惠及健康的有用信息。或许，研究基因拷贝数变异，我们才翻到了这部天书的某一章节。(生物谷Bioon.com)
生物谷推荐原文出处：
Human Molecular Genetics doi:10.1093/hmg/ddp564
Copy number variations in East-Asian population and their evolutionary and functional implications
Seon-Hee Yim1,3,, Tae-Min Kim1,2,, Hae-Jin Hu1,2, Ji-Hong Kim1,2, Bong-Jo Kim4, Jong-Young Lee4, Bok-Ghee Han4, Seung-Hun Shin1,2, Seung-Hyun Jung1,2 and Yeun-Jun Chung1,2,*
Recent discovery of the copy number variation (CNV) in normal individuals has widened our understanding of genomic variation. However, most of the reported CNVs have been identified in Caucasians, which may not be directly applicable to people of different ethnicities. To profile CNV in East-Asian population, we screened CNVs in 3578 healthy, unrelated Korean individuals, using the Affymetrix Genome-Wide Human SNP array 5.0. We identified 144 207 CNVs using a pooled data set of 100 randomly chosen Korean females as a reference. The average number of CNVs per genome was 40.3, which is higher than that of CNVs previously reported using lower resolution platforms. The median size of CNVs was 18.9 kb (range 0.2–5406 kb). Copy number losses were 4.7 times more frequent than copy number gains. CNV regions (CNVRs) were defined by merging overlapping CNVs identified in two or more samples. In total, 4003 CNVRs were defined encompassing 241.9 Mb accounting for 8% of the human genome. A total of 2077 CNVRs (51.9%) were potentially novel. Known CNVRs were larger and more frequent than novel CNVRs. Sixteen percent of the CNVRs were observed in 1% of study subjects and 24% overlapped with the OMIM genes. A total of 476 (11.9%) CNVRs were associated with segmental duplications. CNVS/CNVRs identified in this study will be valuable resources for studying human genome diversity and its association with disease.
