Is severe congenital neutropenia inherited ?
Most cases of severe congenital neutropenia are classified as sporadic and occur in people with no apparent history of the disorder in their family. Some of these cases are associated with changes in specific genes; however in some cases the cause of the disorder is unknown.  Many cases of severe congenital neutropenia are inherited in an autosomal dominant pattern, which means one copy of the altered gene in each cell is sufficient to cause the disorder.  Less often, this condition is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern, which means both copies of the gene in each cell have mutations. The parents of an individual with an autosomal recessive condition each carry one copy of the mutated gene, but they typically do not show signs and symptoms of the condition.  In rare cases, severe congenital neutropenia is inherited in an X-linked recessive pattern. In these cases, the gene that causes the condition is located on the X chromosome, which is one of the two sex chromosomes. In males (who have only one X chromosome), one altered copy of the gene in each cell is sufficient to cause the condition. In females (who have two X chromosomes), a mutation would have to occur in both copies of the gene to cause the disorder. Because it is unlikely that females will have two altered copies of this gene, males are affected by X-linked recessive disorders much more frequently than females. A characteristic of X-linked inheritance is that fathers cannot pass X-linked traits to their sons.