Huntington essays

Huntington essays Huntington's Disease is a devastating, degenerative brain disorder for which there is, at present, no effective treatment or cure. It slowly diminishes the affected individual's ability to walk, think, talk and reason. Eventually, the person with the disease becomes totally dependent upon others for his or her Unfortunately, the trait is dominant, and there is no such thing as a carrier. Either you have it, or you dont, though some people dont find out that they have the gene until they have children. The disorder affects males and females equally and crosses all ethnic and racial boundaries. Each child of a person with the abnormality has a 50/50 chance of inheriting the fatal gene. Everyone who carries the gene will develop the disease. In 1993, A genetic marker was discovered which localised the Huntington's disease gene to an area close to the tip of the short arm of chromosome four. The gene itself causes horrendous problems. At one end of the gene, a pattern of three DNA bases (CAG), repeats itself in all cases. In normal individuals, this triplet repetition occurs between 11 and 29 times. In people with Huntington's disease, the repeat occurs over and over again, from 40 times to more than 80. This abnormal number of repeated sequences prevent the gene from functioning properly. The gene repetitions lead to the repeated amino acid on the protein produced by the gene called huntingtin. The repeated amino acid (glutamine) changes the way the protein works with all of the other proteins. Huntingtin with the repeated glutamine sequences seizes and keeps hold of the important proteins in the brain and body. With all of this disorder going on throughout the body, all of the other proteins cant perform their regular role. This is a disease that can be very draining on families: emotionally, physically and economically. Though the disease is ...