Lecture 21-Multifactorial Conditions Flashcards
Of single gene disorders, chromosome disorders and multifactorial disorders which is most common genetic condition?
multifactorial: 20-40%
What are 2 different multifactorial conditions that have been found in mummies and therefore have been around for a long time?
- arteriosclerosis
- hydrocephalus
frequency of concordance between monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins is used to ______
- show the impact of environment and genetics on multifactorial disorders
Give some examples of multifactorial disorders (just be familiar with these). (9)
- cancer
- atopic disorders
- inflammatory bowel disorders
- arthritis
- mental illness
- alzheimers
- coronary artery disease
- hypertension
- diabetes
What is the most common cause of malformations in infants?
- multifactorial/familial disorders (although this is after unknown causes)
multifactorial disorders account for most _____ anomalies.
CNS
(T/F) If a condition disproportionately affects families it’s genetic. Why?
- False: families have same cultural attitudes, behaviors, diet and environmental exposures
(T/F) inheritance patterns of multifactorial disorders are fairly easy to decipher as such.
False-they’re not clear cut
What are the difficulties in understanding multifactorial inheritance? (3)
- separating effects of genetics from the environment
- understanding heterogeneity of the disorder
- ignorance of the basic defects involved
Multifactorial disorders result from _____
- hereditary factors (polygenetic, i.e., they affect multiple genes)
- environmental factors
- when both of these groups of factors push the individual above the “threshold of risk”
What is used for genetic counseling of mutlifactorial disorders?
- empiric risk figures
Aside from disorders, what else is mutlifactorially determined?
- quantitative traits like height, intelligence, bp
How can the population frequency of various multifactorial traits (not disorders necessarily) be represented?
- additive–bell shaped distribution in an Normal/Gaussian curve of variation
How are disorders with a small hereditary influence treated? Give an example.
- changing the environment
- stop smoking for those with predisposition for lung cancer
How are disorders with a large hereditary influence treated? Give an example.
- examination of family members is emphasized
- lifestyle modifications
- breast cancer
What is the concordance rate between MZ and DZ twins for pure genetic conditions?
MZ: 100%
DZ: <100% and similar to concordance among siblings
What is the concordance rate between MZ and DZ twins for pure environmental conditions?
MZ = DZ
What is the concordance rate between MZ and DZ twins for multifactorial conditions?
MZ>DZ but not 100%
What is the concordance of CL/P among MZ? DZ? What does this tell us?
- 35-40%
- 4-5%
- CL/P is a multifactorial trait
What are the difficulties in twin studies? (4)
- MZ twins often treated more similarly than DZ
- Somatic mutations can occur during mitotic divisions of the cells in MZ twins
- uterine environment of MZ twins may not be identical
- number of MZ twins reared apart is small
What is the equation for measuring familial aggregation relative risk
lambda r=(incidence in a relative “r” of an affected person)/(population prevalence of the disease)
Which disorder is becoming a good example of a disorder with multifactorial genetics?
- autism: risk ratio for MZ twins 2000 vs. siblings 150
What is the purpose of case control studies?
- assess familial aggregation
What do case control studies do? give an example in which these were used to show higher prevalence of disease in related individuals.
- compare a patient with the disease (the case) to controls
- MS: 3.5% of siblings of patients with MS had MS as well. This was much higher than among the relatives of matched controls who did not have MS
What are the difficulties with case-control studies?
- ascertainment
- recall bias
- choice of controls
heritability (include equation)
- % of the population variation that is due to genes
- H=2(cmz-dmz)
Traits that are largely caused by genes result in a heritability estimate close to ____.
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