Deadly X-Gene Mutants

A RECENT study on macrophages (i.e. defensive cells in our body that engulf threatening substances inside our body) introduced me to a lethal, genetic disease that targets the male population.

This disease is called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), named after the French neurologist Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne, who described it in 1861.

While it has an incidence of one in 3,500 newborn males, health experts consider this as the most common lethal disease of childhood around the world.

Mutation in the male (X) chromosome [dystrophin gene, locus Xp21] causes a rapid degeneration of the muscles, leading into an eventual loss of walking ability and then death.

While females do not exhibit symptoms, they can be carriers of these defective genes, especially if the father had this condition or the mother is also a carrier.

Symptoms usually appear before age five; at times visible in early infancy. These symptoms involve... (Read more.)

This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 11 August 2010.

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