A brief history of genetic variation analysis

As the human genome sequence is determined, there is an emerging need for the analysis of human sequence variations as genetic markers in diagnosis, linkage and association studies, cancer research, and pharmacogenomics. There are several different techniques and approaches for detecting these genetic variations, and here we review some of these techniques and their application fields. However, all the techniques have advantages and disadvantages, andfactors such as laboratory instrumentation, personnel experience, required accuracy, required throughput, and cost often have to be taken into account before selecting a method.