Fragile sites

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Fragile Sites: Some chromosomes have regions that are poorly connected to the rest of the chromosome. The poor connection is often a string rich in CGG or CGC repeats, and is inherited like a gene. Breaks from these fragile sites leads to the loss of genetic material.

There is a fragile site on the human X chromosome, which causes Fragile X syndrome producing mental retardation. It is one of the trinucleotide repeat disorders.

It is known that other fragile sites may play a role in cancer.