Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

A 3-year-old boy presented with alpha-thalassaemia, dysmorphic features, and mental handicap. His younger sister is also mentally retarded, but haematologically normal. High resolution cytogenetic analysis revealed a normal karyotype in all family members. However, a combination of DNA analysis and in situ hybridisation demonstrated that the mother has a previously unsuspected balanced reciprocal translocation between the tips of the short arms of chromosomes 1 and 16, and that the alpha-globin gene complex (which maps to the tip of chromosome 16) is included in the translocated segment. Both of her children have inherited one of the translocation chromosomes in an unbalanced fashion: the boy has the derived chromosome 16, and therefore has alpha-thalassaemia, whilst the girl has the derived chromosome 1. Such cytogenetically invisible subtelomeric translocations are probably an important and hitherto unrecognised cause of genetic disease.

Type

Journal article

Journal

Lancet

Publication Date

1989

Volume

2

Pages

819 - 824

Keywords

Alpha-Globulins/analysis/genetics Case Report Child, Preschool Chromosome Aberrations/blood/*genetics Chromosome Deletion Chromosome Disorders Chromosome Mapping *Chromosomes, Human, Pair 1 *Chromosomes, Human, Pair 16 DNA/analysis Female Genetic Counseling Genotype Human Karyotyping Male Mental Retardation/blood/complications/*genetics Nucleic Acid Hybridization Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Thalassemia/complications/*genetics *Translocation (Genetics)