What Is a Carrier for Cystic Fibrosis?
Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at
5:39 pm
Question by skyler: what is a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis?
My cousin just found out that her daughter is a carrier for cystic fibrosis what does this mean?
Most detailed answer:
Answer by formerly_bob
CF is caused by a specific genetic mutation. If a person has the mutation, then they are called a carrier because their genes carry the mutation.
If you know better then please let us know below.
Tagged with: Carrier • cystic • fibrosis
Filed under: Cystic Fibrosis
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You know that everyone carries two sets of genes for each characteristic — one from each parent. So for each set of two, there can be dominant genes or recessive genes. If you have one or two dominant genes for something, then that’s what you end up with. If you have two recessive genes for something, that’s what you end up with. If you have a dominant and a recessive, then you end up with the dominant thing, but you are a carrier. You don’t have the disease, but you have the chance of passing the disease on.
Your cousin’s daughter has a dominant gene for “normal” as in no cystic fibrosis, and a recessive gene for cystic fibrosis. She doesn’t have the disease, but if she has a baby with someone who has a recessive gene, or who has the disease, then there will be a percentage chance their children will have cystic fibrosis.
Both parents have to have the carried gene – my sister in law had CF because both my inlaws had the gene…
If she has a child with another carrier of the CF gene there is a 25% chance that their child will have CF. If her partner does not have the CF gene she could still pass the gene on but her children will not have CF.
She does not have CF and will show no symptoms at all.
If she has children with someone who is a carrier, then there is a 25% chance that their child will have CF, a 50% chance that the child will be a carrier, and a 25% that they will not be a carrier at all.
If she has children with someone who is not a carrier, then there is a 25% chance that the child will be a carrier and a 75% that they will not be a carrier at all.
We have a 5 year old daughter with CF.
It means she is a gene carrier for cystic fibrosis. If she plans to have children, the father should be checked too. Refer to cff.org for a detailed explanation.