A woman develops Huntington’s disease and already has 3 children. What is the chance that the mother has passed this disease onto her 3 children? Is this autosomal dominant or recessive?
Huntington's disease is an autosomal dominant disorder. This means that both homozygous dominant and heterozygotes will have the disease.
The mother may be homozygous dominant or heterozygous. As father is normal, he always give normal allele to each of his children.
If the mother is homozygous dominant which means she has both defective allele, every child will be affected. So the probability that 3 children will have the disease is 100%.
If the mother is heterozygotes which means she has one normal allele and one defected allele, then there is 50% chance that each of her child will have the disease. If the child get the diseased allele from the mother, he/she will be affected and if the child receive the normal allele from the mother, he/she will be normal. So probability is 50%.
Get Answers For Free
Most questions answered within 1 hours.