duplikation

Duplikation is the act or process of producing a duplicate; the term is used across disciplines to denote the creation of a copy of an object, sequence, or phenomenon. In biology, duplication refers to the replication or copying of genetic material and can occur at different scales, such as a gene, a DNA segment, or a whole genome. Mechanisms include unequal crossing over during meiosis, replication slippage, and retroposition. The results can be gene families, paralogs, dosage variation, or even novel functions as duplicates diverge over time. Gene duplications are a major source of evolutionary novelty, providing raw material for adaptation. Notable examples include duplications of the PMP22 gene associated with Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease type 1A, and historical whole-genome duplications that shaped vertebrate evolution. Detection relies on copy-number variation analysis, comparative genomics, and sequencing.

In genetics, duplications contribute to genetic diversity and can have neutral, beneficial, or deleterious effects depending on context and dosage sensitivity. They are studied in the fields of genomics and evolutionary biology and are distinguished from other structural variations by the presence of extra copies rather than rearrangements alone.

Beyond biology, duplication appears in other domains. In linguistics, duplication refers to the repetition of a word or morpheme for emphasis or grammatical purposes, or as a productive morphological process in some languages. In information technology and data management, duplication means creating identical copies of data; deduplication is the practice of identifying and removing redundant copies to save storage space and improve efficiency.

Overall, duplikation describes the broad concept of making copies, with specific mechanisms, consequences, and methods varying by discipline.