Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Aneuploidy in Health and Disease

Edited by Zuzana Storchova, ISBN 978-953-51-0608-1, Hard cover, 244 pages, Publisher: InTech, Chapters published May 16, 2012 under CC BY 3.0 license
DOI: 10.5772/2155

Aneuploidy means any karyotype that is not euploid, anything that stands outside the norm. Two particular characteristics make the research of aneuploidy challenging. First, it is often hard to distinguish what is a cause and what is a consequence. Secondly, aneuploidy is often associated with a persistent defect in maintenance of genome stability. Thus, working with aneuploid, unstable cells means analyzing an ever changing creature and capturing the features that persist. In the book Aneuploidy in Health and Disease we summarize the recent advances in understanding the causes and consequences of aneuploidy and its link to human pathologies.