Inheritance

     Leukemia is not hereditary; it happens mainly randomly. However, hereditary influence and environmental exposures can influence a person's risk for leukemia. In a few rare cases, parents seem to pass on the susceptibility to the disease, and the gene that causes this seems to be designated as CBFA2. For more information on this gene and how it affects a person's susceptibility to leukemia, see Research Outlook.

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Research Outlook

     Although leukemia is not typically inherited through heredity, there are rare cases where a gene is inherited that makes a person more susceptible to the disease. In 1990, a woman went to Gary Gilliland for a second opinion after her diagnosis of acute leukemia. The woman seemed to be from a family that had an unusually high risk for developing acute leukemia, and after taking blood samples from five generations of her family, Gilliland identified a genetic mutation that causes a familial platelet disorder. This disorder increases a person's risk for developing acute leukemia, and it first is visible at birth. "A mother can tell instantly if the child has the trait because they're badly bruised from the trauma of childbirth" (Gilliland). Later on their lifetimes, these people have a high risk of developing AML. Using blood and bone marrow samples from the woman's family, Gilliland narrowed done the region for this gene to chromosome 21. The researchers found a mutation in a gene designated CBFA2, which produces a protein that activates blood cell development. The mutation caused the function of the gene to be void, but if the mutation occurs in even one copy of the gene, it can increase a person's risk for AML. It is unusual to see a gene problem arising from only one copy of the gene being mutated, researchers don't normally see this happening in autosomal dominant diseases. 

For more information of Glliland's research and results, Click Here.

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