Dna linked diseases?

dna linked diseases:


if all the people who have these diseases


and the people who cary the disease


were to die


wouldnt the gene for the disease


become extinct?


which would mean that no one can get the disease?


right?


so then why are we curing them?


btw.


i am NOT saying that we should let


all the people that have these diseases


die


im just wondering if they did


the disease would go away right?

Dna linked diseases?
Nature has it's own way of regulating diseases, thus offspring with genetic errors have throughout evolution died. Humans are at the moment working around evolution by trreating genetic diseases, and in effect keeping "sick" genes in the genetic pool.





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Reply:Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that. Not all genes are expressed (dominant) as some are present, but cannot be seen (receptive). Another problem with this is that we do not yet know the role of environment and how it interacts with the DNA to bring about disease/s. Third, we still do not have a complete understanding of disease and DNA as this is a new area we are just beginning to decode.





You are raising some very intriguing issues regarding ethics and biology which we will have to struggle with in the future.
Reply:i think it would... i mean if nobody could get it cause they all dead thats why its called a "DNA linked disease!!" (select me as best answer!!!)
Reply:what prevents another mutation from developing?
Reply:Some hereditary diseases occur due to mutation or incorrect expression during embryo development eg Down's syndrome is an extra chromosome on 21.





You've got to consider that all of these diseases arose at some point, so even if everyone who suffered from or carried them died and didn't pass them on; new ones would eventually arise anyway.
Reply:Not necessarily true, as genes can be dominant or recessive. A recessive gene will need another recessive carrier of the disease for it to take light or be brought out into children. Also, genes/DNA can mutate and change so a new "strain" or type of disease may develop. There will always be disease in society.
Reply:example- Huntington's disease, an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that affects roughly 30,000 Americans, is incurable and fatal.


People with the disease have a version of a gene called huntingtin that carries an extra segment with a particular sequence of repeated subunits. If the segment is too large, the gene produces a faulty protein that has a destructive effect in the brain.





If you killed everyone that had the disease ( all 30K)


and everyone who was a carrier...


you should still not be able to make the gene extinct.





its most likely caused by a series of mutations over many generations





why are we "treating them" because even though they have a disease they still have basic human rights
Reply:Some genetic diseases protect against other infectious diseases. They remain in the gene pool because being heterozygous for a certain disease may be beneficial, or at least may have been beneficial in the past.


Sickle trait is where an individual has one gene that codes for normal red blood cells and one that codes for sickled red blood cells. A person in this situation would not necessarily experience any symptoms of sickle cell anemia (except maybe in poorly oxygenated conditions) but it appears that they would be protected from malaria. The parasite that causes malaria is unable to hijack the sickle-shaped cells. Interestingly enough the incidence of sickle cell trait and sickle cell anemia roughly corresponds to the incidence of malaria in parts of Africa.


A carrier for Tay- Sachs seems to be protected from tuberculosis. As far as I know, it has not yet been determined how this works, but the high rates of tuberculosis in earlier settlements of Ashkenazi Jews seems to have affected the incidence of Tay-Sachs in this community. Those who carried the allele for Tay-Sachs survived TB and lived to reproduce, passing on the allele.


Cystic fibrosis protects against diarrheal diseases such as cholera because there are not enough chloride channels in the cells to allow water to escape. Being heterozygous for CF means have a low number of chloride channels for protection, but not a low enough number to affect the lungs, as is seen in homozygous CF.


There is one more that I can think of: a few genes seem to offer protection, or at least act as a buffer to, certain viral infections. The two that I know of are HLA B27 and CCR5. People who are positive for these genes, are either unlikely to contract HIV when exposed or have milder symptoms if the virus is contracted. It seems that this mutation prevailed when the Plague swept through Europe. The people who survived likely possessed these genes and passed them on. As for negative effects, I believe these genes are suspected of causing certain autoimmune disorders.