Practice question

Functional and structural genomics require complementary marker resources for integrated analysis. Expressed Sequence Tags derived from cDNA provide evidence of actively expressed genes, enabling functional annotation, tissue-specific expression profiling and identification of conserved coding regions for comparative mapping. Variable Number Tandem Repeats and related tandem repeat families reveal chromosome architecture, heterochromatin organization, high polymorphism and linkage relationships for structural mapping. Combining VNTR for structural diversity assessment and EST for gene function investigation bridges genome architecture with gene content, supporting both structural and functional studies.