Any tricks for memorizing genetic inheritance patterns?

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tiedyeddog

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Anyone have any tips for memorizing if a disease is autosomal dominant, recessive, or whatever? It seems like we have hundred of diseases to memorize this for and it just mushes together for me after awhile.

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Anyone have any tips for memorizing if a disease is autosomal dominant, recessive, or whatever? It seems like we have hundred of diseases to memorize this for and it just mushes together for me after awhile.

general rule with exceptions:

enzyme deficiencies: auto recessive
structural deficiencies: auto dominant

like I said, there are exceptions but you can at least fall back on that if all else fails.
 
general rule with exceptions:

enzyme deficiencies: auto recessive
structural deficiencies: auto dominant

like I said, there are exceptions but you can at least fall back on that if all else fails.

To expand on this, loss of function mutations tend to be recessive while gain of function tend to be dominant. It all kinda makes sense when you think about it: mutations which cause 1 copy to not work tend to be compensated by the other copy. But you can't really do anything about a protein that mutates in a way to lose its regulation and is always "on". These end up being dominant more often than not.
 
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Memorize them in groups.

Make a list of all the autosomal dominant and x-linked things. Cite them off until it's 2nd nature.

So few things are these compared to AR. So once you get these down, pretty much all the rest=AR and you're set. Easier to remember 10 than 50
 
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