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Mosaic Down Syndrome

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Down syndrome is a cell malfunction that affects people on a day to day basis all across the world. Down syndrome is a condition in which a person has all or some of the third copy of chromosome 21 present. There are three types of Down syndrome. The first one is called trisomy 21, the second one is called translocation Down syndrome, and the third one is called mosaic Down syndrome. Down syndrome is the number 1 genetic condition in the United States and there is an excess of 350,000 people living in the United States with this condition.

As human beings we have 46 chromosomes divided into 23 pairs. Chromosome 21 is one of those pairs. There are two copies of chromosome 21, one from each parent. This chromosome is the smallest chromosome in the human body. There are approximately 200 to 300 genes on chromosome 21. The main job that this chromosome as a whole has is simple. The sole purpose of chromosome 21 is to manufacture protein cells.

The reason as to exactly why people have Down syndrome is based …show more content…

Mosaic Down syndrome, just like trisomy 21 cannot be inherited and is also just a random event. Like translocation, mosaic Down syndrome is also very rare, with under 2 percent of cases falling under this category. The word mosaic Down syndrome comes from the term mosaic art. The reason being is the fact that mosaic art contains different color tiles, and some mosaic Down syndrome cells contain trisomy 21 and others contain the normal amount of chromosomes. There are two differences between mosaic Down syndrome and the other two types of Down syndrome. The first reason is the fact that mosaic Down syndrome consists of 2 or 3 copies of chromosome 21 rather than a half or a whole. And the second reason is that the copies of chromosome 21 are only in some of the body’s cells not all of them. In most cases, the children with mosaic Down syndrome scored higher on the IQ test than children with trisomy 21

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