Haplotype_block
Haplotype block
Genomic region containing only a few distinct haplotypes
In genetics, a haplotype block is a region of an organism's genome in which there is little evidence of a history of genetic recombination, and which contain only a small number of distinct haplotypes.[1] According to the haplotype-block model, such blocks should show high levels of linkage disequilibrium and be separated from one another by numerous recombination events.[2] The boundaries of haplotype blocks cannot be directly observed; they must instead be inferred indirectly through the use of algorithms. However, some evidence suggests that different algorithms for identifying haplotype blocks give very different results when used on the same data,[3] though another study suggests that their results are generally consistent.[4] The National Institutes of Health funded the HapMap project to catalog haplotype blocks throughout the human genome.[5]