I am scheduled for (Hopefully) Mitral Valve repair surgery in September to repair both the posterior and anterior leaflets. There is some risk that a repair cannot be accomplished and a mechanical valve will be inserted. I am a 45 year old male in excellent physical condition otherwise. Questions:
Polymorphism is an object-oriented programming concept that refers to the ability of a variable, function or object to take on multiple forms. A language that features polymorphism allows developers to program in the general rather than program in the specific.
Here is how I think about this distinction, which at least partly incorporates the prior answers. For biochemistry, a polymorphism is one of multiple alternative forms within a protein or nucleic acid sequence. For genetics, a polymorphism refers to genetic variants within the population that allow evolution by natural selection. A mutation is a change in nucleic acid sequence, such as in the sequence of a gene or its regulatory elements.