Disorders Associated With Diverse, Recurrent Deletions and Duplications at 1q21.1

Hui Pang; Xiaowei Yu; Young Mi Kim; Xianfu Wang; Jeremy K Jinkins; Jianing Yin; Shibo Li; Hongcang Gu

doi:10.3389/fgene.2020.00577

Disorders Associated With Diverse, Recurrent Deletions and Duplications at 1q21.1

Front Genet. 2020 Jun 23:11:577. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2020.00577. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Hui Pang¹, Xiaowei Yu², Young Mi Kim¹, Xianfu Wang¹, Jeremy K Jinkins¹, Jianing Yin², Shibo Li¹, Hongcang Gu^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma, OK, United States.
² The First Affiliated Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
³ Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, United States.

Abstract

The subchromosomal region 1q21.1 is one of the hotspots in the human genome for deletions and reciprocal duplications, owing to the existence of hundreds of segmental duplications. Recurrent deletions and duplications in this region are thought to be causative in patients with variable clinical manifestations. Based on the genomic locations, deletions and duplications at the 1q21.1 locus have been associated with distinguishable syndromes: chromosome 1q21.1 deletion syndrome, chromosome 1q21.1 duplication syndrome, and thrombocytopenia-absent radius (TAR) syndrome, which is partially due to deletions at the proximal 1q21.1 region. We report here diverse, recurrent deletions and duplications at the 1q21.1 locus in 36 patients from a cohort of 5,200 individuals. Among the 36 patients, 18 patients carry 1q21.1 deletions, nine individuals have reciprocal duplications at 1q21.1, two patients share an identical short deletion, and the remaining seven possess variable sizes of duplications at the proximal 1q21.1 region. Furthermore, we provide cytogenetic characterization and detailed clinical features for each patient. Notably, duplications at the proximal 1q21.1 region have not been associated with a defined disorder in publications. However, recurrent duplications at the proximal 1q21.1 region among the seven patients strongly suggested that the variants are likely pathogenic. The common phenotypical features of those disorders are also summarized to facilitate clinical diagnoses and genetic counseling.

Keywords: 1q21.1 deletion; 1q21.1 duplication; TAR deletion; breakpoints; non-allelic homologous recombination; proximal 1q21.1 duplication; segmental duplication.