In this file, we read a news story about advances being made in discovering the science behind heart attacks. Until recent advances, heart attacks were thought to be random, with few genetic signs if any. Heart attacks are caused when a plaque blocking occurs in a major vein or artery, depriving the heart of blood, which can cause the heart to sustain damage, or in some cases cause it to completely stop permanently. When members of the Steffenson family (a group with a history of heart attack) sent in their blood to be used in furthering heart attack research, a mutation was found in all of their samples. This mutation in the MEF2A gene, causes artery walls to be more likely to crack when the plaque ruptures, which greatly increases a person's chance of having a heart attack. Researches believe that by identifying genes such as MEF2A that have a close correlation with heart attacks, they can decrease the number of deaths caused.
This article is relevant to the current chapter our class is covering, because blood clots and heart attacks happen in the circulatory system. As we are learning in class, blood moves through the body in a loop, leaving the heart through the arteries, entering the veins through capillaries, and then returning to the heart. Any disruption such as a plaque build up, a weakening or artery walls, or the blocking of blood flow result in a lack of homeostasis, which can have devastating short and long term effects on that person.
What is the type of inheritance of the allele that is the mutation in the MEF2A gene? In other words, is it dominant, recessive, sex-linked, etc.?
ReplyDeleteBarry Huang
How common is the MEF2A gene? How many people in say, the country or the world have it? Or is that yet to be discovered?
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