ISSN:
1432-1203
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
Notes:
Abstract The Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a developmental disorder caused by a deficiency of paternal contributions, arising from differently sized deletions, uniparental disomy or rare imprinting mutations, in the chromosome region 15q11–q13. We studied 41 patients with suspected PWS and their parents using cytogenetic and molecular techniques. Of the 27 clinically typical PWS patients, 23 (85%) had a molecular deletion that could be classified into four size categories. Only 15 of them (71%) could be detected cytogenetically. Maternal uniparental heterodisomy was observed in four cases. The rest of the patients showed no molecular defects including rare imprinting mutations. In our experience, the use of the methylation test with the probe PW71 (D15S63), together with the probe hN4HS (SNRPN), which distinguishes between a deletion and uniparental disomy, is the method of choice for the diagnosis of PWS.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00223871
