Dictionary of Human Evolution and Biology

Dictionary of Human Evolution and Biology

Werner Syndrome

One of the progerias, or autosomal recessive syndromes in which the rate of aging is increased, or at least mimicked. In WRN, onset is in the second or third decade of life; by age 40 an affected individual has premature wrinkles, baldness, cataracts, muscular dystrophy, and diabetes. Lifespan is truncated. The defective gene is WRN, probably a helicase in the RecQ family that normally unwinds dsDNA.

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progeria (Any one of a small set of accelerated aging disorders. Progerias include Werner syndrome and ...)
Down syndrome (Profound phenotype caused by the presence of three copies of all the genes on chromosome 21 ( ...)
Angelman syndrome (AS) (... happy puppet syndrome, Prader-Willi/Angelman syndrome. See Prader-Willi syndrome.)
cri-du-chat syndrome (... adulthood. Aka cat’s cry syndrome, 5p-syndrome.)
Albright syndrome (... Sternberg syndrome, McCune-Albright syndrome. Formerly called Albright’s disease.)