Huntington's Disease

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band 4p16.3. It was first identified in 1993.
While everyone posseses this gene, in someone suffering from Huntington's
disease, the number of repeats of a certain trinucleotide, cytozine-adenine-
guanine (CAG), is much larger than what it is in a normal person. In an average
person, the number of repeats is between 9 and 37. But is a sufferer of HD, the
repeat count is from 37 to 86. While nobody has found a direct correlation
between the number of repeats and the age when symptoms appear, there is
evidence that people with very high numbers of repeats contract the rarer early-
onset Huntington's disease, which usually affects people under the age of 20.
It is estimated that between .1 and 10 % of people who suffer from Huntington's
disease have obtained it through new mutations.
There are three different tests for Huntington's disease. The first,
presymptomatic testing, is for people who are at risk for the disease. The
second, prenatal testing, is a testing of a fetus ...

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