Fabry Disease Research Paper

12. Explain why more males tend to suffer from X-linked disorders than females. (5 points) Males tend to suffer from X-linked disorder more often than females because females have more X chromosomes than males.

The mother, who is a carrier, inherits an X-Linked or sex-linked faulty gene. The result is producing an affected son and or a daughter being a carrier. The second way is an affected male producing children, particularly daughters. All daughters born to fathers with x-linked muscular dystrophy will be carriers; on the contrary their sons will be unaffected. Scientists link this to a genetic mutation in the gene, appearing most often for the first time in a family.

Krabbe disease affects this production of myelin due to a missing enzyme. People with Krabbe disease do not have the enzyme, galactosylceramidase, or GALC (Stanley 2005). GALC is located in chromosome fourteen (Stanley 2005).

This syndrome is not very common, because it is a rare condition. Its prevalence is not certain, but the proximate amount is 5 to 10 individuals per million newborns. Research workers appraise that there are approximately 200 to 300 individuals around the world who have this disorder. It is observed with equivalent recurrence in both males and females over all ethnic groups.

Females are carriers in their X-Chromosome and they have the chance of passing the disease on to their children, 50-50 to a girl and 50-50 to a boy. If the girl does receive the gene she becomes a carrier. If the boy gets the gene then he has the disease. Males do not pass on the gene to their children because they pass on the Y-chromosome and the disease is X specific. Some female carriers have indicators of being a carrier by having symptoms of cardiomyopathy, shortness of breath during exercise, and muscle weakness in the back, arms, and legs. There have been very rare instances where a girl has not received a

This syndrome is from a mutation of a gene on chromosome 15 and this causes problems in the production of fibrillin-1 which is a protein that is an important part of connective tissue. The name for the gene is FBN1. Basically, it is the “glue” that helps to support the tissues in the human body. A child born to a parent with this syndrome has a 50% of having it. However, in the remaining 25%, neither parent has the disease which gives them a 1 in 10,000 chance of having a child with this disorder. When a child of two unaffected parents is born with it then the genetic mutation occurs in either the egg or sperm cell at the time of conception.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a gender-linked inherited disorder. To illustrate, males only have one X chromosome, therefore they do not have a second X chromosome to make up for the damaged gene. Females can only become carriers of the disease, as females have a second X chromosomes to make up for the damaged gene.

This syndrome is inherited in families in an autosomal dominant manner. Since Marfan syndrome is autosomal dominant, people with this disorder can be either homozygous dominant or heterozygous. This means that people carrying even one copy of the altered gene will have the disorder. Mutations of the FBN1 gene has been linked to the Marfan syndrome, although not everyone who has this mutation develops the disorder.

Fragile X Syndrome was identified in the year 1991. This disability affects more males than females. Approximately 1 in 4,000 males are affected, however only 1 in 8,000 females are affected (Lombroso, 2003). Fragile X generates in the FMR1 gene. Fragile X is caused by an excessively repeating tri-nucleotide,

Males are affected way more often than females because the mutation of the gene occurs on the X chromosome. Since males only have one X chromosome if that chromosome is mutated then the signs and symptoms of muscular dystrophy show up and because females have two X

An example of a recessive x-linked disorder is fragile x-syndrome or FXS. Fragile x-syndrome affects a person’s behavior, learning, intellectual, as well as physical characteristics. Fragile x-syndrome is more likely to affect males over females and does not shorten their life expectancy. Males who have FXS can have ADD or ADHD, autism, aggression and other behavioral traits. Men can have physical alterations such as a long face, large ears, and flat feet. Women who have FXS can experience the same behavioral traits but are usually milder in comparison to men. The same is shown through the facial features for women (National Fragile X Foundation,

Adrenoleukodystrophy is a genetic disease that is passed on from mother to son. ALD is an X-linked disorder. That means it affects only males and is transmitted by a female carrier. This disorder is called X-linked since the genetic abnormality involves the X-chromosome. Women have two X-chromosomes while men only have one. In women, the affected X-chromosome, the one with the gene for ALD does not become active because of the presence of a normal copy of the gene on the other X-chromosome. Men have one X-chromosome and one Y-chromosome. In men who have an X- chromosome for X-ALD, there is no other X- chromosome for protection.

Because the genetic defect occurs on the X chromosome, women are carriers of hemophilia but rarely have the disorder. Hemophilia occurs almost exclusively in men.

The XXY syndrome, most commonly known as Klinefelter syndrome (KS), only affects males of all ages. This syndrome occurs when there is a random genetic error after conception and is not curable, however treatment can help.All females have XX chromosome and all males have XY chromosomes. Unlike the normal XY type that all males have, males affected have an additional X chromosome which results into many symptoms such as impaired spermatogenesis, low testosterone, and male hypogonadism. Since Klinefelter syndrome is related to the sex chromosomes of males, it is a sex link trait.

Gaucher’s disease which is also identified as glucocererbrosidase deficiency, this happens when the lipid, glucosylceramide, builds up in bone marrow, lungs, spleen, liver and sometimes the brain. It’s a hereditary disease. When the lipid as mentioned earlier is faulty glucosylceramide accumulates more commonly in the microphages which is a type of white blood cell.