Sickle cell anemia is a genetic disease that causes deformed red blood cells with a rigid, crescent shape instead of the normal flexible, round shape[1]. Point mutation, a change in only one nucleotide,[1] in the HBB gene causes sickle cell anemia. The HBB gene encodes information to make the beta-globin subunit of hemoglobin, which is the protein molecule of red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. Sickle cell anemia occurs when the HBB gene mutation causes both beta-globin subunits of hemoglobin to change into hemoglobin S (HbS)
[1] http://genetics.thetech.org/about-genetics/mutations-and-disease
 | This is a user sandbox of Brendaw8. You can use it for testing or practicing edits. This is not the sandbox where you should draft your assigned article for a dashboard.wikiedu.org course. To find the right sandbox for your assignment, visit your Dashboard course page and follow the Sandbox Draft link for your assigned article in the My Articles section. |
- ^ "What Is Sickle Cell Disease? - NHLBI, NIH". www.nhlbi.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-11-10.