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Name: Diana
Status: Student
Age: 60a
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: N/A
Question:
What is wrong with the genes associated with albinism? For example with huntington's the gene is too big. What is wrong with the albinism genes?


Replies:
Albinism is caused by a loss-of-function mutation. That means the gene is either missing altogether, missing some important part, or has a change at some crucial point in the gene that eliminates its function. There may not be an obvious change in the size of the gene at all. One tiny substitution within the gene can result in the necessary change.

Christine Ticknor
Ph.D. student
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut


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