Sickle+Cell+Anemia

 = = =Sickle Cell Anemia = toc By: Alex Bailey and Junior Lewis

What Is Sickle Cell Anemia?
Sickle cell anemia is a blood disorder that mostly affects people of African descent. In fact one in every five hundred African Americans in the U.S have sickle cell trait and one in ever thousand Hispanic people in the U.S have it. Also approximately 72,000 people have it in the United States. Sickle cell anemia is caused by an expressed mutation where the amino acid hydrophilic glutamate is substituted with the amino acid valine at the sixth amino acid position of the Hemoglobin (HBB) polypeptide chain. If each parent has one sickle gene (S) and a normal gene, then each child has a 25% chance of getting the disease with a detective gene, 25% of not having the disease with a normal gene and 50% of being a carrier like their parents. This disease causes red blood cells to take a sickle shape. A normal red blood cell contains an iron-rich protein called hemoglobin which gives the blood its red coloring. Also Hemoglobin molecules in each red blood cell transfers oxygen from the lungs to body organs and tissues and bring carbon dioxide back to the lungs. A normal red blood cell is flexible and looks like a doughnut, in the middle it looks like it has been partially scooped out. Because they are soft and flexible, they can easily fit through even the smallest of blood vessels. Unfortunately, sickle shaped cells are quite the opposite. Sickled red blood cells contain abnormal hemoglobin, so the red blood cells become sickle shaped, stiff, and sticky. This causes the cells to form clumps and get stuck in the blood vessels and it is much harder for the blood to flow properly. The diagnosis of sickle cell is a blood test taken for newly born infants. Hemoglobin electrophoresis is the most common diagnostic test taken. If the test result end up with sickle hemoglobin there must be a second diagnostic test to confirm the diagnosis. The typical symptoms of this disease are shortness in breath, intense pain and fatigue. Sickle cell anemia originated in Africa and the mutation occurred on a few different occasions. Sickle cell disease were popular among Africans because malaria was a common disease and people with sickle cell are immune to malaria. In Africa some of the children were too poor to have physical check ups and often died of the disease. Calculations show that the first mutation occurred about 70000-150000 years ago. It came to the U.S when slaves from Africa were exported to different parts of the U.S and spread the disease.

Effects of Sickle Cell
Sickle Cell is a very severe disease where the effects are fatal. Sickle can give a person shortness in breathing, headaches, fatigue, pale skin, yellow eyes, intense pain in parts of the body, delayed puberty and death. It also caused damage to organs such as the lungs, kidneys, liver, bones and brain. The sickle gene is a mutated gene that doesn't allow the blood to circulate through the body. This disease changes a person's life because the person can't have strenuous physical recreation because of quickness in fatigue, also are in pain frequently. The home doesn't have to be modified it just depends on how bad the disease affected the person. The person probably can't go to regular school because the person might need to be watched and treated at all times. The person might need someone to live with him or her because of the person needs attention at all time and anything could happen. The person can have children but it is not recommended to make a baby with a person with a sickle cell trait as well.

Treatment and Prognosis
Although there is no cure for Sickle cell doctors have come with some treatments. Some treatments the doctors use are blood transfusions, oral antibiotics, and Hydroxyurea. Blood transfusion increase the number of red blood cells in the body's circulation. Blood transfusion can also cure strokes. Oral antibiotics are used by taking two penicillin everyday for two months which can prevent from experiencing pneumococcal infection and early death. Hydroxyurea is used to cure intense pain especially in the chest area. . Also drinking about 8 to 10 glasses of water everyday and taking penicillin which prevent infection can also be an alternative treatment. A new but contraversal treament is called gene therapy. Gene therapy is a beneficial treatment where it corrects defective genes responsible for a disease with replace with a normal gene. In our recent time the life expectancy with people with sickle cell has in increased in the past 30 years.

Punnett Square
A punnett square is a grid that crosses two different alleles to determine the probability of what the offspring trait will be.

Sickle Cell Anemia
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media type="youtube" key="ujf72mjy0Bg" height="344" width="425"
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Websites
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Sca/SCA_WhatIs.html

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/posters/chromosome/sca.shtml http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/medicine/genetherapy.shtml

Images
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=normal%20and%20clumped%20hemoglobin&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&q=sickle+cell+anemia

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/images/hemoglobin.gif&imgrefurl=http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/

http://www.sicklecellinfo.net/images/understanding/origins%20of%20sickle%20cell.jpg

Youtube Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujf72mjy0Bg