Monday, November 20, 2017

A New Way to Reveal Information About Down Syndrome from Chromosomes




The role of a centromere is to accurately segregate a chromosome.  They also function as the place where sister chromatids stick together.  These roles lead the centromere to be in charge of birth defects and cancers arising from cell division problems.  In the article, "New Approach to Studying Chromosomes' Center May Reveal Link to Down Syndrome and More" describes a new technique being done at the University of Michigan that is working to reveal the secrets of these centromeres.

The article continues to say how researchers have already discovered that Down Syndrome is related to the copy of chromosome 21 that these people have.  They are hoping to use new techniques to see what other conditions and diseases the centromeres have control over.  The centromeres DNA instability could effect its function and this is essentially what happens in Down Syndrome and what these scientists are studying and experimenting with.  The new approach takes small chromosome specific variations and uses them as PCR primers.  In a half hour, this technique lets researchers look at centromeres of just about every chromosome in a cell.

This new approach seems to be beneficial in understanding how some diseases and conditions come about through a persons chromosomes.  If this approach continues to be used, I think that more and more diseases will be understood, and therefore there will be creations of ways to prevent and treat those specific diseases based on their findings.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171120104816.htm
https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/chromosome-segregation-in-mitosis-the-role-of-242

1 comment:

  1. I wonder if this study really provides any insight into treatment for diseases like Down Syndrome. Instead it kind of sounds like were just expanding our understanding of what the disease is and what causes it.

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