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Essay on Fragile X Syndrome

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Background (576 words)
The most common cause of inherited mental impairment is Fragile X Syndrome. Fragile X Syndrome is a mental retardation that affects social, learning and intellectual disabilities. It is a result of a change and mutation in a single gene, which can be pasted on to future generations. Symptoms arise when the mutated gene, FMR1, cannot produce enough of the protein, FMRP, that the body’s cells need to function. The symptoms can vary from each affected individual depending on how severe the gene mutation is. Fragile X causes symptoms such as intelligence and learning difficulties. Those who are effect normally have an IQ of 75 or less however this is more variable depending on gender, physical appearance, social and …show more content…

Around 1 in 400 to 6000 females in the world are also born with the full mutation and will show features of the disease. On the other hand, roughly 1 in 800 men and 1 in 260 women in the world are carries of the Fragile X pre-mutation. Furthermore, a recent 2004 analysis indicates that the quantity could be as high as 1 in 130 women, which shows that there may be a rapid increase of carriers of the disease (The National Fragile X Foundation, 2011).

Fragile X Syndrome affects the X chromosome, genes and DNA. It affects the X chromosome by a locus as seen in figure 2 below. A clear comparison can be made between a normal X chromosome and a Fragile X affected X chromosome. The genes and DNA are affected by a section of nucleotides in which the triplet CGG nucleotide sequence is repeated. If the triplet is repeated over 200 times in a person, then they are most likely to suffer from fragile X Syndrome as seen in table 1.

Number of Repeats Condition
5-44 Normal
45-54 Gray Zone, no measurable risk for affected children, but gene may be unstable
54-200 Pre-mutation, carrier
200 and greater Full mutation, affected

Table 1: Number of DNA repeats and the condition (Maddalena, 2008)

Unfortunately there is currently no cure for the disease. Nevertheless, there are many special

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