Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to F Brunsmann.
We performed prenatal testing to predict the inheritance of choroideremia (CHM) using a linked polymorphic DNA marker, DXS95. DNA analysis of chorionic villi at the 12th week of pregnancy indicated that the allele at risk had not been passed from the heterozygous mother to the fetus. This prenatal exclusion of choroideremia was confirmed by polymerase chain reaction-single-strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) analysis.
By making use of positional cloning strategies we recently isolated a candidate gene for choroideremia (CHM), which is transcribed in retina, choroid, and/or retinal pigment epithelium. The gene contains an open reading frame that is structurally altered in 10 CHM patients with sizable deletions and in a female patient with a balanced translocation involving the Xq21 band. Employing PCR-SSCP analysis and direct DNA sequencing we have now detected and characterized different point mutations in five patients with CHM. Each of these mutations introduces a termination codon into the open reading frame of the CHM candidate gene, thereby predicting a distinct truncated protein product. Together these findings provide convincing evidence for the candidate gene being identical with the choroideremia gene.
In order to characterize a previously described submicroscopic deletion encompassing (part of) the choroideremia (tapetochoroidal dystrophy: TCD) gene, we have cloned a 10.5-kb EcoRI fragment from the patient's DNA; this fragment carries the junction between both deletion endpoints ("junction fragment"). The distal portion of this fragment defines a new marker within, or just distal to, the TCD gene. This marker has been employed to confirm the diagnosis in several affected family members, and to rule out carriership in a female at risk with conspicuous clinical signs.
Making use of the p1bD5 probe (DXS165), we have isolated several markers from the choroideremia locus by chromosomal jumping, preparative field-inversion gel electrophoresis, and cloning of a deletion junction fragment. With these clones we were able to identify and characterize eight deletions in 69 choroideremia patients investigated. The deletions are heterogeneous, in both size and location. The smallest deletion (patient LGL1134) comprises approximately 45 kb of DNA, whereas the largest ones (patients 25.6 and LGL2905) span a DNA segment of at least 5 megabases, which is comparable in size to the smallest deletion detected in a TCD patient (patient XL45) showing a complex phenotype. The TCD deletions encompass variable parts of 150-200-kb DNA segment that is flanked by p1bD5 (DXS165) at the centromeric side and by pZ 11 at the telomeric side. The deletions in patients 33.1, LGL1101, and LGl1134 do not span a translocation breakpoint which was previously mapped on the X chromosome of a female with TCD. The clones isolated from the TCD locus are valuable diagnostic markers for deletion analysis of patients or carrier females. In addition, they should be useful for the isolation of expressed sequences that are part of the TCD gene.
Choroideremia (tapeto-choroidal dystrophy, TCD), an X chromosome-linked disorder of retina and choroid, causes progressive nightblindness and central blindness in affected males by the third to fourth decade of life. Recently, we have been able to map the TCD gene to a small region of overlap between five different, male-viable Xq21 deletions that were found in patients with TCD and other clinical features. Two families were identified in which classical, nonsyndromic TCD is associated with small interstitial deletions that are only detectable with probe p1bD5 (DXS165). To characterize these and two other deletions that were identified more recently, we have used the chromosome walking and jumping techniques to generate a set of five chromosomal-jumping clones flanking the DXS165 locus at various distances. With these clones, we could localize four of the eight deletion endpoints and the breakpoint on the X chromosome of a female with a de novo X/13 translocation and choroideremia. These studies assign the TCD gene, or part of it, to a DNA segment of only 15-20 kilobases.
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Using various probes from the Xq21 region which is known to carry the choroideremia (tapetochoroideal dystrophy, TCD) locus, we have screened the DNAs from eight unrelated male choroidermia patients for microdeletions. In two of these patients, but not in any of 45 males tested as controls, lack of hybridization signals with probe plbD5 suggested a deletion encompassing the DXS165 locus and (part of) the TCD gene. Absence of additional clinical features in these patients and the fact that two closely linked, and probably flanking, TCD markers (DXYS1 and DXS72) are not deleted may indicate that the physical distance between the DXS165 locus and the TCD gene is small.
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Choroideremia is a progressive tapetochoroidal dystrophy with X-linked transmission leading frequently to blindness in affected males. The choroideremia-locus (TCD) has recently been assigned to the long arm of the X chromosome by linkage to polymorphic DNA markers. In order to further define the location of the gene defect, two families segregating for choroideremia were examined for DNA restriction fragment length polymorphisms. A search was undertaken for linkage with cloned DNA probes from the proximal short and long arm as well as from the mid-portion of the long arm of the X chromosome. Our data suggest that the most plausible gene order on the Xq is: Xcen-DXYS1-DXS3-TCD-DXS11-Xqter.
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