I always get confused between the terms 'polymorphic' and 'heterozygous'. That said, I did look into the differences and am fairly confident about the distinction. Until I came across this term "highly heterozygous".
I have a highly polymorphic dataset (DNA from multiple species pooled and sequenced together) that I am trying to assemble. I had in mind an assembler that is designed for "highly heterozygous diploids".
Biologically and by definition, is there any difference between the two terms (highly heterozygous vs polymorphic)?
Polymorphic - Any variations in the primary DNA sequence. This can occur on a population level across the entire species. For example, comparing across different mouse strains (C57, 129, Castaneus, BALBC etc.)
Heterozygous - Differences in the primary DNA sequence found within one organism. For example, if there is a SNP that is different between C57 and 129 (polymorphism) and I cross the two strains, the F1 will be heterozygous for this polymorphism.
Highly heterozygous - Lots of differences in polymorphisms across the entire genome.
For example, crossing INBRED C57 with INBRED 129 results in few heterozygous regions. (1 SNPs per kb)
In contrast, crossing INBRED C57 with OUTBRED Castaneus will result in a (relatively) highly heterozygous F1 (3 SNPs per kb)
