New Abnormal Karyotypes Discovered in China

Experts at the Technological Centre for Healthy Birth under the Guangdong Family Planning Research Institute in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province claim that they have discovered 39 cases of new abnormal chromosomes. They said that these would provide more information to scientists for genetic and cloning researches.

Director of the centre Zheng Lixin told the press that these cases of abnormal chromosomes have been verified by the National Laboratory of Medical Genetics in Central China's Hunan Province. The researchers have analyzed about 5,000 blood samples since 1996.

In one of the cases, a 4-year-old girl lost the gene responsible for inhibiting retinoblastoma, a tumor in the retina, from developing into cancer.

In another case, a 22-year-old female patient was born without a womb which was attributed to the abnormal chromosomal karyotype.

In another case an abnormal chromosomal karyotype caused the low sperm count of a pair of twin brothers.

Zheng said that currently many of these genetic diseases that result in low reproductive capacities due to abnormal chromosomal karyotypes cannot be cured effectively.

Hence doctors should be made aware of all these abnormalities hereby this would help them to provide proper advice to their patients. They would suggest their patients to undergo artificial insemination or to go in for adoption to prevent defective births.

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He also said that these abnormalities in the karyotypes could be attributed to environmental pollution such as chemicals, radioactive materials or biological viruses. Hence they serve as a potent tool for assessing environmental pollution.