Autosomal recessive

Hello! So, when we talk about autosomal recessive, we're talking about some of the ways that our genes work.

So, everyone has genes - they're like little instruction manuals that tell our bodies how to work. Some genes make our hair color, some make our eyes the way they are, and some make sure our organs work correctly.

Now, sometimes these genes come in pairs. You get one copy of a gene from your mom and one copy from your dad. If these two copies are the same, we call that a homozygous pair. If they're different, we call that a heterozygous pair.

So, the term "autosomal" just means that these genes are not related to our sex chromosomes. Men have an X and a Y chromosome, and women have two X chromosomes, but these autosomal genes are on the other chromosomes that everyone has.

Alright, so here's where the "recessive" part comes in. Some gene instructions are dominant - that means if you have at least one copy of that instruction, your body will follow it. But some instructions are recessive - that means you need two copies of the instruction in order for your body to follow it. If you only have one copy, you'll still follow the dominant instruction.

So, let's put that all together. In an autosomal recessive pair of genes, both copies of the gene need to have the same recessive instruction for your body to follow it. If you only have one recessive instruction, your body will follow the dominant one instead.

That can be important when we're talking about traits or conditions that are tied to these autosomal recessive genes. For example, if two parents are both carriers of the same recessive gene, there's a chance their child could inherit two copies of that gene and therefore show the trait associated with it. But if only one parent is a carrier, the child will inherit one copy of the recessive gene and one copy of a dominant/normal gene, so they won't show the trait.

I hope that helps explain it a bit!