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Step 3d: Other Factors

Instructions

  1. There is not an accompanying Other Factors pod on Learn.Genetics. Instead, you may wish to revisit and discuss What is an Environmental Factor? (coming soon)

  2. Students should complete the Other Factors section of their Lab Notebook. As noted there, they will need to refer to:
    • Their assigned Allele Profile
    • The Learn.Genetics web page for their assigned genetic disorder

Note: Completing this section will require students to decode and summarize text in order to construct their own explanations. They may need a little extra help with this, as this is not a fill-in-the-blank type of exercise.

How can other genes and environmental factors influence the disorder?

  • Through proteins, the information in genes shapes characteristics at the cellular, tissue and organismal levels.
  • Environmental factors and variations in other genes interact with disease-causing alleles to produce a range of phenotypes.
  • Treatment for a disorder may include any combination of managing environmental factors, medically treating symptoms, or compensating for a missing or altered genetic factor.