Cellular Information Research Paper

Cellular information passes from one generation to the next in the form of Dna through a process called meiosis. Cellular information is stored in Dna, which is wound tightly around proteins in a double helix to form chromatin strands, which in turn are wound tightly to form chromatids. A normal human has 92 chromatids. After dna replication occurs in the S phase of meiosis, these chromatids duplicate themselves to form sister chromatids that are held together by a centromere. This becomes a chromosome, which then travels through the process of meiosis. Meiosis is how cellular information passes from one generation to the next because in this cycle, the egg and sperm containing genetic information from the paternal and maternal figure are created. When the egg and sperm go through fertilization, the cellular information from the parents are within the new,

ALD is a mutation that is carried on the X chromosome, which of course is passed down from parents to child like all other chromosome. In females, this gene does not affect them greatly or at all because females have two X chromosomes. If one sex chromosome has a mutation, females have a “backup” X chromosome to compensate. This is why females are usually only carriers of ALD, like how Mrs.Odone was. In males however, they have no backup X chromosome, they have only one X chromosome. Their father will give them their Y chromosome, and their mother will give them their X one. If the mother was a carrier of ALD, then the mutation gets passed down to the son, who unfortunately will be affected to the full extent of symptoms. This happened to Lorenzo. His mother was a carrier of the ALD gene, so when she went through meiosis, she had a 50-50 chance of passing down the mutation. Unfortunately the odds were not in her favor, and the X chromosome she passed down to her son was the one containing the ALD mutation. Therefore, Lorenzo inherited ALD from his mother,