NURS 6501 Discussion: Alterations in Cellular Processes Discussion: Alterations in Cellular Processes

NURS 6501 Discussion: Alterations in Cellular Processes Discussion: Alterations in Cellular Processes

Purpose Statement

This paper is being written to explain the pathology of cystic fibrosis. I personally have a friend who has this disease and have learned from her. The topics that will be covered are, how cystic fibrosis is created at a cellular level, genetics role in cystic fibrosis, the reasoning for the symptoms that the patient presented with, the description of the cells involved in cystic fibrosis, and how other characteristics would change the child’s response to cystic fibrosis. In short what I remember from nursing school is that cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder which is an autosomal recessive gene that is carried by both the mother and the father. The abnormality occurs in chromosome 7 which is where creates an inability to transport small molecules across the cell’s membrane, which in turn, dehydrates the cells of the epithelium and this then creates dry secretion. This is a broad overview of what this disease is, but I will go into further detail below.

Genetics play an important role in this disease, according to an article published in PubMed titled Cystic fibrosis genetics: from molecular understanding to clinical application states that due to a defective epithelial cell that is defective, this cell is inherited and is an autosomal recessive gene. The genetic information that is in the cell, which is the recipe for the cell to make proteins (Cutting, 2015).  According to Pathophysiology of disease: An introduction to clinical medicine, if a person receives a cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator gene (CFTCR), or a person can receive two copies of the CFTCR gene. This copy has a mutation of the cystic fibrosis gene, furthermore these two copies of the CFTR gene have stored a mutation which is the on chromosome seven. So, when the recipe is being presented to the cell to be made, the genetic information is then stored into the deoxyribonucleic acid which is known as DNA.  This is part of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, but on the seventh chromosome, the cystic fibrosis recipe is stored in that chromosome. In the DNA, where the CFTCR gene recipe lives, if there is one copy of the recipe than the gene will not show up in the person but will be a carrier but if there are two copies of the recipe being stored in the chromosome than the cystic fibrosis gene than the person will have cystic fibrosis (McCance at el., 2019).

 Why the Patient is Presenting with the Specific Symptoms Described

The symptoms that the baby presented with were salty skin, periodically patient gets a swollen stomach, and not gaining weight

Discussion Alterations in Cellular Processes

normally. According to an article published Journal of Cystic Fibrosis, titled Inflammation in cystic fibrosis lung disease: Pathogenesis and therapy, the major organ systems that are made up of epithelia. The systems that are being affected in this patient are the sweat glands, liver’s bile duct, and intestines in the gastrointestinal tract. The article goes on to explain that the loss of pancreatic function leads to the patient suffering from malnutrition, and not growing normally. Therefore, the replacement of enzymes is important for this patient to be able to prevent the clogging of the cell because of the inability to breakdown an access amount key nutrient (Cutting, 2015).