Role in Disease
Some human diseases caused by translocations are:
- Cancer: several forms of cancer are caused by acquired translocations (as opposed to those present from conception); this has been described mainly in leukemia (acute myelogenous leukemia and chronic myelogenous leukemia). Translocations have also been described in solid malignancies such as Ewing's sarcoma.
- Infertility: one of the would-be parents carries a balanced translocation, where the parent is asymptomatic but conceived fetuses are not viable.
- Down syndrome is caused in a minority (5% or less) of cases by a Robertsonian translocation of the chromosome 21 long arm onto the long arm of chromosome 14.
Read more about this topic: Chromosomal Translocation
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