Introduction Neurofibromatosis type 2 is an autosomal dominant disease caused by mutations in the NF2 gene on 22q12.2. Its protein product, merlin, supposedly plays an important role in connecting membrane proteins with the cytoskeleton by coordinating growth-factor signalling. The most common mutations are truncating and splice site mutations, showing a genotype-phenotype correlation. A high r...

Hemoglobin (Hb) Lepore is composed of two normal α chains and two δβ fusion globins that arise from unequal crossover events between the δ- and β-globin genes. The Hb Lepore is widespread all over the world and in many ethnic groups. It includes some of the few clinically significant Hb variants that are associated with a β-thalassemia phenotype. Here, we describe the first occurrence of Hb Lep...

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is a hereditary disorder caused by mutations in the NF1 gene. Detecting mutation in NF1 is hindered by the gene's large size, the lack of mutation hotspots, and the presence of pseudogenes.Our goal was to establish a sensitive, feasible, and comparatively economical protocol to detect NF1 mutations using blood samples.We developed a method to screen patients for m...

Recently, deletions have been identified and published as causal for Familial Adenomatous Polyposis in the 1B promoter region of the APC gene.  Those deletions were measured using multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification.  Here, we present and characterize an ~11kb deletion identified by whole genome shotgun sequencing.  The deletion occurred in a patient diagnosed with Familial Adenoma...

Copy number variations (CNVs) are an important cause of ASD and those located at 15q11-q13, 16p11.2 and 22q13 have been reported as the most frequent. These CNVs exhibit variable clinical expressivity and those at 15q11-q13 and 16p11.2 also show incomplete penetrance. In the present work, through multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) analysis of 531 ethnically admixed ASD-affe...

BACKGROUND BRCA1 and BRCA2 are the two major genes responsible for the breast and ovarian cancers that cluster in families with a genetically determined predisposition. However, regardless of the mutation detection method employed, the percentage of families without identifiable alterations of these genes exceeds 50%, even when applying stringent criteria for family selection. A small but signi...

PURPOSE Retinoblastoma (RB), an intraocular tumor of childhood, is commonly associated with mutations in the RB1 gene. RB116 is a novel, early passage RB cell line that has not been previously characterized. In this study, we examined RB116 for the expression of RB1 and tested the hypothesis that RB116 cells would express stem cell markers as well as retinal progenitor cell markers. We compared...

AIMS AND BACKGROUND Copy number variations (CNVs) contribute to genome variability and their pathogenic role is becoming evident in an increasing number of human disorders. Commercial assays for routine diagnosis of CNVs are available only for a fraction of known genomic rearrangements. Thus, it is important to develop flexible and cost-effective methods that can be adapted to the detection of ...

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a rare genetic disorder of the connective tissue. It presents with wide spectrum skeletal and extraskeletal features, ranges in severity from mild to perinatal lethal. The disease characterized by heterogeneous background, where approximately 85%–90% cases have dominantly inherited heterozygous pathogenic variants located COL1A1 COL1A2 genes. This paper results f...

Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) is an autosomal dominantly inherited cancer predisposition syndrome caused by germ line mutations in DNA mismatch repair genes, predominantly MLH1 and MSH2, with large genomic rearrangements accounting for 5% to 20% of all mutations. Although crucial to the understanding of cancer initiation, little is known about the second, somatic hit in HNPC...