Effect of genetic ‘knockouts’ on human health

Only a fraction of genes appear to be essential for human life, according to researchers from the East London Genes & Health project, working with Born in Bradford and others. The study did not have any related adverse health effects. During fertilisation, humans inherit two copies of every gene, one from each parent, so that if one copy is inactivated, the other may make up for it. When two inactive copies are inherited, this is called a 'knockout'. Sometimes, having a gene knocked out has no effect, as a separate protein may have a similar function to the inactivated one. In other cases, a knockout has the potential to offer an advantage or a disadvantage. While scientists often use knockouts in mice to understand the function of genes, the effect of knockouts in humans is less well understood.