• Question: How does angelman syndrome occur ?

    Asked by Siyakolisi to Aoife on 14 Nov 2019. This question was also asked by hazel.com.
    • Photo: Aoife Campbell

      Aoife Campbell answered on 14 Nov 2019:

      First person to ask this question, thanks! Its caused by the loss of an important gene called ‘Ube3a’ that has lots of different functions in our brain like controlling excitation levels. It’s really interesting because we get a copy of this gene from each of our parents on chromosome 15 but its naturally silenced on our fathers copy, so angelman syndrome can occur when theres an issue with the copy of Ube3a from our mother. I hope that makes sense?! Please ask further questions if not 🙂

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