A gene product is the biochemical material, either RNA or protein, resulting from expression of a gene. A measurement of the amount of gene product is sometimes used to infer how active a gene is. Abnormal amounts of gene product can be correlated with disease-causing alleles, such as the overactivity of oncogenes which can cause cancer.
A gene is defined as "a hereditary unit of DNA that is required to produce a functional product". Regulatory elements include:
* Promoter region
* TATA box
* Polyadenylation sequences
* Enhancers
These elements work in combination with the open reading frame to create a functional product. This product may be transcribed and be functional as RNA or is translated from mRNA to a protein to be functional in the cell.