Autosomal dominant inheritance

In this video, we learnt about autosomal dominant inheritance, where an affected individual has a mutation in one gene of a pair.

The main features of autosomal dominant inheritance pattern include:

• Males and females are affected in roughly equal proportions.
• People in more than one generation are affected.
• Men and women are both able to pass on the condition to their sons and daughters.

Angelina Jolie’s family tree in pedigree form Click to expand
_{© St George’s, University of London}

The image above depicts a simplified version of Angelina Jolie’s family pedigree, illustrating how an autosomal dominant condition can be passed down through 3 generations.

The actress, who has a pathogenic mutation in BRCA1, lost a number of her immediate family to cancer: her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother.

Talking point

We can see that the emergence of a greater understanding of genomics has already led to some difficult choices. What are, if any, your views on this?

_{Image: ©“Angelina Jolie – World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2005” by Remy Steinegger / World Economic Forum. Licensed by CC BY-NC-SA 2.0}