Title: Inherited Diseases: Types, Causes and Symptoms
Headings: What Are Inherited Diseases (Genetic Disorders)?
What Are Inherited Diseases (Genetic Disorders)?
Table of Contents
What exactly are genes?
Chromosomal aberrations or abnormalities
1. Aneuploidy
a. Down Syndrome
b. Turner syndrome
2. Deletion
3. Inversion
4. Translocation
a. Balanced translocation
b. Robertsonian translation:
Single Gene disorders
a. Achondroplasia
b. Marfan Syndrome
c. Cystic fibrosis
d. Sickle cell disease
e. Tay-Sachs disease
X-linked disorders
a. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
b. Haemophilia
Multifactorial diseases
a. Alzheimer’s disease
Mitochondrial genetic inheritance
a. Leber’s Hereditary Optic Atrophy
b. Myoclonic Epilepsy with ragged red fibres
In conclusion:
Sources:

Content: Typically, most genetic disorders are passed down from parent to offspring making them inherited and this inheritance can either be in a dominant or a recessive manner. Generally, we have 22 chromosomes which come along with two copies of each gene. For females, they have two copies of all their genes on a single chromosome known as the X chromosome while for males, they have all their genes on two chromosomes which are the X and Y chromosome respectively. Hence the males will have a single copy of the X chromosome genes and a single copy of the Y chromosome genes while females have two copies of the X chromosome genes. For an inherited disease to be considered dominant, it means that the genetic disorder occurred on only one copy of the two genes. This gives the child a 50-50 probability of getting the disorder. The child may or may not get a genetic disease. However, an inherited disease is said to be recessive when there are genetic abnormalities in both copies of the gene. This means that both parents must carry at least one copy of the infected gene in order for the offspring to be infected. Once both parents have a copy of an abnormal gene, there is a 25% chance that the child will inherit the two abnormal genes and such causing the child to have an inherited disease.