A decade of structural variants: description, history and methods to detect structural variation

Abstract

In the past decade, the view on genomic structural variation (SV) has been changed completely. SVs, previously considered rare events, are now recognized as the largest source of interindividual genetic variation affecting more bases than single nucleotide polymorphisms, variable number of tandem repeats and other small genetic variants. They have also been shown to play a role in phenotypic variation and in disease. In this review, the authors will provide an introduction to SV; a short historical perspective on the research of this source of genomic variation; a description of the types of structural variants, and on how they may have arisen; and an overview on methods of detecting structural variants, focusing on the analysis of high-throughput sequencing data. ; E.D. is supported by a Marie Curie Intraeuropean Fellowship (IEF), R.R. is supported through the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 262055. We acknowledge support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, 'Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013-2017', SEV-2012-0208, the 'Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia' (2009 SGR 1502) and the 'PN de I+D+I 2008-2011' and ISCIII (SAF2008-00357). The research leading to these results reflects only the author s views and the funding agencies are not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained in this paper.