What causes CF?
Approximately 30,000 people in the United States have been diagnosed with CF, which affects both males and females. It’s not contagious, so you can’t catch CF from another person. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited disease caused by mutations (changes) in a gene on chromosome 7, one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that children inherit from their parents. Cystic fibrosis occurs because of mutations in the gene that makes a protein called CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator). A person with CF produces abnormal CFTR protein — or no CFTR protein at all, which causes the body to make thick, sticky mucus instead of the thin, watery kind. People who are born with CF have two copies of the CF gene. In almost all people born with CF, one gene is received from each parent. This means that the parents of kids with CF are usually both CF carriers — that is, they have one normal and one defective gene — but the parents may not have CF themselves because their normal gene is able to “take ove
