Question

what is the commonality of life given the

knowledge of the various forms of gene interaction

why is it important to know this in biology

Answer 1

Genetic interaction is the set of functional association between genes. One such relationship is epistasis, which is the interaction of non-allelic genes where the effect of one gene is masked by another gene to result either in the suppression of the effect or they both combine to produce a new trait

The term gene interaction has also been used with reference to direct physical interactions between gene products, most usually protein–protein interactions, though protein–RNA, protein–DNA, RNA–RNA, and RNA–DNA interactions may also be encountered.

These physical interactions often involve high-affinity, stable binding, which can be easily detected by biochemical methods, but may alternatively involve transient phenomena, such as protein modification or cleavage.

Weak or transient interactions may still be biologically important, and can often only be detected by genetic methods. Genetic approaches, however, cannot usually distinguish between direct and indirect interactions.

Biological epistasis, i.e., the gene-gene interaction has biological basis, is in contrast to statistical epistasis that describes deviation from additivity in a linear statistical model.

Gene-gene interaction is a common component of genetic architecture of human complex diseases.

There are likely to be many susceptibility genes, each with combinations of rare and common alleles and genotypes, that impact disease susceptibility primarily through nonlinear interactions with genetic and environmental factors

The shepard’s purse example from Shull (1914) is an example of biological epistasis.