A man who heavily smokes has developed lung cancer. The tobacco smoke has caused mutations in some of the cells in his lungs, ma
king them unable to stop reproducing and dividing. He is worried that his children, none of whom smoke, may have inherited the lung cancer from him. Under what circumstances might his concern for his children be justified? If his smoking had already mutated the DNA in the cells in his lungs at the time his children were conceived, the mutations would have been passed to his children.
If he inherited a mutation which made him more susceptible to lung cancer, it may have been present in some of the gametes he produced and passed to his children.
If the mutation resulted from the duplication of a gene in his lung cells, his children would be at greater risk than if it were caused by a base pair substitution.
If the smoke had caused multiple different mutations in his lung cells, it would be more likely that one or more of the mutations would be passed to his children.
The addiction to smoking can happen with his children, even if they are not smoking yet. The fact of the father being a smoker has been established, the answer is B. The smoking habit could be present in the father's gametes which can be extremely dangerous to his children. In many instances, smoking can be genetically linked, which is likely in this case.
If he inherited a mutation which made him more susceptible to lung cancer, it may have been present in some of the gametes he produced and passed to his children
Explanation:
Even tho the cause of lung cancer is not very clear, a genetic predisposition is of a great influence, his smoking and therefore causing a lung cancer is not appliable to his children because of no connection, but in the sense of having a mutation which makes you predisposable to the cancer with or without the smoking, can lead to a high risk of gene inheritance and therefore inheriting the mutation with a high risk of getting lung cancer excluding the smoking.
