My Riverside Rapid Digital Portfolio

Mutation Story

Story:

Hi! My names Genie and I’m a Heterochromia gene mutation. Heterochromia is a mutation that makes your eyes two different colours. People conseider me to be a neutral mutation but I think I actually do something good for you,  I make your eyes prettier by making them different colours. I’m going to explain to you my story of how I came to be a Heterochromia gene in my friend, Sam.

There’s more then one way to be affected by Heterochromia like: inheritance, genetic mosaicism (when a cell has different amounts or arrangements of chromosomes then others), chimerism , disease,  or it can be a result of too much or too little melanin (responsible for hair and skin colour). I can either be found on chromosome 15 I’m in control of EYCL3 (for brown and blue eyes) and on chromosome 19 and I’m in control of EYCL1 (for green and blue eyes).

Before I even existed Sam’s mom had Heterochromia aswell which made her left eye green and her right eye brown, and my genes are very easy to inherited so naturally it got passed on to Sam which is basically where I come in. When Sam’s eyes were different colours we knew that it was most likely inheritance from his mom or it could be a messed up pigment. Iris colour develops in the first few weeks after birth so I affected him right away! I don’t only affect males though, it can happen to anyone just as easily as it happened to Sam. Sam will still continue to live his life no differently then any other kid, I’m only a neutral mutation.

Well that’s my story I hope you learned something from it!

 

Part 2: Making of the story

My questions were:

  • How does someone get Heterochromia?
  • What’s genetic mosaicism?
  • How does melanin affect Heterochromia?
  • When will you know that you have Heterochromia?
  • Which chromosomes are affected by Heterochomia?

At the beginning of this project I was having a hard time figuring out information about my subject, it seemed like there was nothing about it but I figured out I wasn’t asking the right questions. Once I got one answer I figured out that there was a different way I had to type the questions into Google. Most of my answers came from Wikipedia or a direct google answer, there were a few that didn’t but I made sure it was good helpful information. But for next time I might choose a either positive or negative mutation so I can tell more of a story and explain how it will affect their life because with this one it doesn’t really affect them that much.

Here are some sites that I used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterochromia_iridum

http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/types/vision/heterochromia.php

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-does-someone-get-two/

230px-Heterochromia

Here is an example of someone with Heterochromia.

 

 

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