A chromosomal abnormality, chromosomal anomaly, chromosomal aberration, chromosomal mutation, or chromosomal disorder, is a missing, extra, or irregular portion of chromosomal DNA. These can occur in the form of numerical abnormalities, where there is an atypical number of chromosomes, or as structural abnormalities, where one or more individual chromosomes are altered. Chromosome mutation was formerly used in a strict sense to mean a change in a chromosomal segment, involving more than one gene. Chromosome anomalies usually occur when there is an error in cell division following meiosis or mitosis. Chromosome abnormalities may be detected or confirmed by comparing an individuals karyotype, or full set of chromosomes, to a typical karyotype for the species via genetic testing. Numerical abnormality
An abnormal number of chromosomes is called aneuploidy, and occurs when an individual is either missing a chromosome from a pair (resulting in monosomy) or has more than two chromosomes of a pair (trisomy, tetrasomy, etc.). Aneuploidy can be full, involving a whole chromosome missing or added, or partial, where only part of a chromosome is missing or added. Aneuploidy can occur with sex chromosomes or autosomes.An example of trisomy in humans is Down syndrome, which is a developmental disorder caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21; the disorder is therefore also called trisomy 21.An example of monosomy in humans is Turner syndrome, where the individual is born with only one sex chromosome, an X. Sperm aneuploidy
Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental and/or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa.
However, in spermatogenesis the ability to repair DNA damages decreases substantially in the latter part of the process as haploid spermatids undergo major nuclear chromatin remodeling into highly compacted sperm nuclei. As reviewed by Marchetti et al., the last few weeks of sperm development before fertilization are highly susceptible to the accumulation of sperm DNA damage. Such sperm DNA damage can be transmitted unrepaired into the egg where it is subject to removal by the maternal repair machinery. However, errors in maternal DNA repair of sperm DNA damage can result in zygotes with chromosomal structural aberrations.Melphalan is a bifunctional alkylating agent frequently used in chemotherapy. Meiotic inter-strand DNA damages caused by melphalan can escape paternal repair and cause chromosomal aberrations in the zygote by maternal misrepair. Thus both pre- and post-fertilization DNA repair appear to be important in avoiding chromosome abnormalities and assuring the genome integrity of the conceptus. Detection
Depending on the information one wants to obtain, different techniques and samples are needed. For the prenatal diagnosis of a foetus, amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling or circulating foetal cells would be collected and analysed in order to detect possible chromosomal abnormalities. For the preimplantational diagnosis of an embryo, a blastocyst biopsy would be performed. For a lymphoma or leukemia screening the technique used would be a bone marrow biopsy. See also
Aneuploidy
Chromosome segregation
Genetic disorder
List of genetic disorders
Gene therapy
Nondisjunction
Obstetrical complications

References
External links
Chromosome+disorders at the US National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)