Question

Tay-sachs disease is an inherited genetic disorder in which the gene sequence codes for an enzyme involved in lipid metabolism. accumulation of lipids in the brain leads to seizures, blindness, loss of neural function, and early death. people can be carriers of this disease and only homozygotic offspring will die from this disorder. the phenotype of tay-sachs disease is an example of which of the following?

a. complete dominance
b. co-dominance
c. incomplete dominance
d. pleitropy epistasis

Answer 1

A child develops Tay-Sachs disease by inheriting two copies of the defective gene, one from each carrier parent, resulting in an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern with pleiotropic effects.

Step-by-step explanation:

Tay-Sachs Disease Inheritance

A child becomes affected with Tay-Sachs disease, which is a severe genetic disorder, by inheriting two copies of the defective gene responsible for the condition, one from each parent. These parents are known as carriers; they each have one normal allele and one mutated Tay-Sachs allele, but they do not show symptoms because Tay-Sachs is an autosomal recessive disorder. Only when a child inherits both mutated alleles (one from each carrier parent), making them homozygous for the mutation, does the child develop the disease and experience symptoms such as progressive neural degradation, seizures, blindness, and early death, usually by age 5. This type of inheritance exemplifies a recessive lethal pattern, where the phenotype (the observable traits) of Tay-Sachs disease is a result of pleiotropy, as the single genetic mutation leads to multiple effects on the individual's health.