autosomal recessive disorder definition biology
Autosomal recessive diseases are genetic diseases that are passed to a child through both parents' chromosomes. Each person inherits 23 chromosomes from each parent and so has 23 pairs of chromosomes. Each chromosome contains genes. One or both of the chromosomes in a pair may contain a changed (mutated) gene that could cause a genetic disease. In an autosomal recessive disease, both chromosomes in a pair must have a changed gene for the person to have the disease. If only one chromosome has a changed gene, the person is a carrier and does not have symptoms.