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From: wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Four Tay-Sachs mutations (was Re: The Ubiquity of Tay-Sachs)
Message-ID: <20756@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 18 Feb 89 03:03:19 GMT
References: <2103@aecom.YU.EDU>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales)
Organization: UCLA CS Department, Los Angeles
Lines: 19

In article <2103@aecom.YU.EDU> werner@aecom.YU.EDU (Craig Werner)
writes:

	The plot thickens even more when you consider that the Tay-Sachs
	mutation actually arose at least four separate times indepen-
	dently (that is, there are four distinct gene patterns, all
	distinguishable from one another by standard molecular genetic
	techniques that cause a defect in the same enzyme, and thus
	create the Tay-Sachs trait.  This is quite a large number when
	you consider that Sickle Cell seems only to have arisen twice.

Are these four gene patterns mutually "compatible"?  Stated another way,
if a child inherits a different version of the TS gene from each parent,
will he still develop Tay-Sachs disease?

-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683
   3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
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