We are all mutants...ok, mostly males

[Isabelle]

Reading my local paper Toronto Star I found this article referring to something called "male-driven evolution". "It's the focus of a review article in the current issue of the Proceedings B from the Royal Society in the UK".

It says: "We are not precise copies of the genetic material of our parents".

"In every generation, genetic mutations are triggered by radiation, chemicals, or simply random change. These change the DNA carried by our parents' germ cells, the basic building blocks of genetic reproduction. But there's a much higher rate of cell division during the sperm production than during egg production, so more chance for mutations."

"Hans Ellegren from the Evolutionary Biology Centre of Sweden's Uppsala University writes that for every 100 mutations transmitted to the next generation, about 80 can be traced to our father's germ cells, while the remaining 20 are maternal. In small rodents, the ration is only two to one."

"Understanding this process in greater detail should help researchers who are trying to discover the origins of genetic diseases."

Yeah! I want to know too, what is behind the term "Genetic diseases" or, it should be better called "generational diseases".

I wish the mutations should be to enhance the human condition not to complicate it or devolve.

So, what everybody think? Should we be concerned?

[peglem]

I tend not to be overly concerned by things I have no control over. When they talk about genetic diseases, it is not neccessarily inherited genes-although it can be. But the other kind of genetic disease would be the kind that comes from some kind of gene damage- such as a mutation or pathogen induced. Its not suprising that mutations occur more often in sperm than eggs. Eggs are all there from the beginning in females- just "ripen" and go for a swim (float?). Sperm are constantly being created by the millions throughout the life of the male. The fact that we live in such a toxic world may mean that these mutations are becomming more frequent. I thought though, that defective sperm were less likely to fertilize an egg, since they are competing with millions of healthy sperm for the privilege.

[Lara]

I think some mutations do occur in a "survival of the fittest" type of way so I don't think all mutations are bad things from what I can gather and not all mutations appear to be carried from parent to child. It's a very complicated area that I don't understand very well though. When I found out about my daughter's serious kidney problems which had gone undiagnosed for 15 years, the surgeon told me that it was one of those genetic situations, where someone in my family or her father's family would have had similar problems. All was news to me. Just how something does get passed down from generation to generation is something I don't understand. Wish I'd done a course in genetics. Then maybe it'd be easier LOL.

I actually posted a little message to you elsewhere about mutations, Isabelle.
I'll repost.

back in a minute ;)

OK, am back. This was what I wrote to you in response to your question about mutations when someone posted an article about genetic mutations in autism. Gene Mutation Linked to Risk of Autism (http://www.kltv.com/global/story.asp?s=5546887)

Isabelle, there are different types of gene mutations. Some are inherited and some are caused by environmental influences and I think some are just spontaneous things that happen somehow when cells are busy copying themselves. Some mutations can be caused by certain chemicals or nuclear radiation, nasty stuff like that.

I've not read enough about the one posted regarding autism, but about a year ago scientists found a gene mutation which they connected to a few people with Tourette syndrome. It doesn't mean everyone has that mutation, it just appears to me that they found *something* and can work on it from there.

The part about the SLITRK1 mutation they found in a few people with TS, I just put in as an example. It doesn't mean that everyone who has a condition will have this mutation. It's more like people with this mutation (and for whatever reason it happened to mutate) don't necessarily carry the condition or the mutation onto their offspring.


To test the idea that the SLITRK1 gene was linked to at least a subset of Tourette's cases, Dr. State and colleagues screened 174 people with the condition; they found one person, diagnosed with both Tourette's and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, with a frameshift mutation in SLITRK1. (A frameshift mutation usually makes the resulting protein non-functional.)

The patient's mother had the same mutation and had been diagnosed with trichotillomania -- compulsive pulling out of hair, regarded as part of the constellation of symptoms that characterize Tourette's -- while three other family members had neither the mutation nor any condition related to Tourette's.

Analysis of 3,600 control chromosomes failed to turn up the mutation, Dr. State said.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/GeneralPsychiatry/tb/1931

[Isabelle]

I got a third hand laptop that my son has fixed for my use. Holly! Takes a lot of me to adapt to this new one....but I'll overcome.

At all events, Lara, more than 'survival of the fittest" is "the capacity to adapt to the new circumstances" that enable us to be what we are but we're getting to the point that no even that is going to save us from imploding. We are damaging the most sacred, our most deepest cells when we are at the most vulnerable, at the point of conception.

I am going to read your articles. Even though his father and some close relatives showed "nervous tics" and, according to dd, some bizarre behaviours in some of them. My son's genetic test came "normal". So, I believe that MMR vaccine supressed long enough my son's fragile immune system for an opportunist, usually harmless germ, to attack his brain/nervous system. As Peglem suspects for her dd, it has to be a Strep related bug. Which does not show the usual symptoms.