These are some terms that may help your understanding of the mapping of the Human Genome Project.

Exons: expressed regions of DNA that contain a code.

Flow Sorting: employs flow cytometry to separate chromosomes, according to size, that have been isolated from cells during cell division when they are condensed and stable.

Gel Electrophoresis: an example of biotechnology which sorts RFLP's by their size. It is a complicated procedure in which the RFLP's are probed and then put into lanes in a gel. An electrical charge is then applied, and the smaller the RFLP, the further it will travel in the gel, because the larger ones are restricted by their size. The data is then taken and the length of the DNA strands can be known determined on how far they traveled. If you click on the word "gel electrophoresis" you will be taken to a link that explains it more in depth.

Introns: non-expressed regions of DNA that do not code for anything.

Meiotic: Meiosis go to pictures to get a better understanding of meiosis.

Polymerase Chain Reaction: a.k.a. PCR. go to pictures to get a better understanding of PCR. To learn more about PCR, click on the picture you are linked to if you click the words Polymerase Chain Reaction.

Rare-Cutter Restriction Enzyme: like the name says, rare cutter enzymes are simply restriction enzymes with a long base-recognition site and therefore cut the DNA very infrequently.

Restriction Enzymes: they recognize a short DNA sequence and cut the DNA molecules at those specific sites. The restriction enzymes base recognition site (the patterns on bases at which they will cut) can range from 4-8. The higher the base recognition site, the more infrequently the enzyme will cut.

Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism: a.k.a. RFLP's the chopped fragments that are the result of a stand (or many) of DNA being exposed to restriction enzymes.

Somatic Cell Hybridization: to process of fusing together human cells and rodent tumor cells. Over time, after the chromosomes mix, human chromosomes are preferentially lost from the hybrid cell until only one or a few remain. Those individual hybrid cells are the propagated and maintained as cell lines containing specific human chromosomes.

NOTE: I can not take credit for the definitions. They are from my assortment of links and references.