Mosaicism for the Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A duplication suggests somatic reversion

Hum Genet. 1996 Jul;98(1):22-8. doi: 10.1007/s004390050154.

Abstract

A female patient with clinical signs and symptoms of a demyelinating neuropathy was shown to have a duplication of the 1.5-Mb region on chromosome 17p11.2, typical of the great majority of cases of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A (CMT1A). However, analysis of DNA extracted from peripheral blood revealed a 2:2.4 instead of the usual 2:3 ratio between the 7.8- and 6.0-kb EcoRI fragments in the proximal and distal repetitive extragenic palindromic (REP) elements of CMT1A. Detection of a 3.2-kb EcoRI/SacI kb junction fragment with probe pLR7.8 confirmed the CMT1A duplication. The dosage of this junction fragment, compared with a 2.8-kb EcoRI/SacI fragment of the proximal REP elements of CMT1A, was 2:0.58 instead of the expected 2:1 dosage for heterozygous CMT1A duplications. We hypothesized that the lower dosages of these restriction fragments specific for the CMT1A duplication were due to mosaicism; this was confirmed by fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis with the D17S122-specific probe pVAW409R1. In peripheral blood lymphocytes the percentage of interphase nuclei with a duplication in 17p11.2 was 49%. In interphase nuclei extracted from buccal mucosa, hair-root cells or paraffin-embedded nervous tissue the duplication was detectable in 51%, 66% and 74%, respectively. This is the first report of mosaicism in a patient with a CMT1A duplication identified by three different and independent techniques.

Publication types

  • Case Reports
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Blotting, Southern
  • Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease / genetics*
  • Chromosome Aberrations*
  • Chromosomes, Human, Pair 17 / genetics*
  • Crossing Over, Genetic / genetics
  • Female
  • Humans
  • In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence
  • Interphase
  • Mosaicism / genetics*
  • Pedigree
  • Recombination, Genetic / genetics
  • Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid