#AskAlyssa ~Does Rett Syndrome affect girls only? °To begin to explain this, lets have a quick biology lesson. X and Y chromosome- the special pair of chromosome that determine gender. girl boy XX XY X chromosomes are different from Y chromosomes. X are big and contain thousands of genes and Y are about 1/4 the size of X chromosomes. °Now to answer the question. While RS is seen almost exclusively in females, there have been a few sporadic cases of males with Rett like symptoms reported. The few males who have been given the diagnosis of RS are either Klinefelters syndrome (XXY makeup) , or mosiac (some MECP2 cells are normal and some are mutated). Males that have the same MECP2 mutation as females are affected much severely than females and die very early in life. If u didnt understand that Lets try this...I hope this make sense. lol pretend that girls were made with two apples(XX) and boys were made with an apple and a cherry (XY). Alyssa was born with a rotten apple but she could still live, because she still has a healthy apple as back up. (»« X) Alfred on the other hand was also born with a rotten apple, but he doesnt have a healthy back up apple he only has a cherry (»« Y), so shortly after birth Alfred dies. Hope I explained this clearly
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 00:41:46 +0000
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