It is important to distinguish between chromosomal translocations that occur in germ cells, due to errors in meiosis (i.e. during gametogenesis), and those that occur in somatic cells, due to errors in mitosis. The former results in a chromosomal abnormality featured in all cells of the offspring, as in translocation carriers. Somatic translocations, on the other hand, result in abnormalities featured only in the affected cell and its progenitors, as in chronic myelogenous leukemia with the Philadelphia chromosome translocation.
