Close linkage of the Wilsons's disease locus to D13S12 in the chromosomal region 13q21 and not to ESD in 13q14

Summary Wilson's disease (WD) is an autosomal recessive disorder resulting in copper accumulation notably in liver and brain tissue. Linkage of the WD locus (WND) to ESD at 13q14 was first shown by studies in families of Middle Eastern origin using the isozymic polymorphism of esterase D. Using RFLPs detected by the ESD cDNA we could not confirm this reported close linkage in an analysis of 17 WD families of northwest European origin. A tight linkage was detected, however, to the marker D13S12, located more distally at 13q21. No obligate cross-overs were detected in 63 gametes informative for this marker. Our data confirm an assignment of WND to 13q14-21. Its localization, however, seems to be more distal to ESD than previously reported. Although genetic heterogeneity cannot be excluded, the observed differences between the two populations are probably due to random variation.     

A new HaeIII polymorphism at the D21S13 locus

Summary DNA markers in the pericentromeric region of human chromosome 21 have shown linkage to a gene for Familial Alzheimer disease (FAD; St. George Hyslop et al. 1987). The limited informativeness of probes for the loci D21S13 and D21S16 have hindered precise mapping of the FAD locus and analysis of non-allelic heterogeneity in FAD (Schellenberg et al. 1988; St. George-Hyslop et al. 1987). We recently described a new EcoRII polymorphism at the D21S13 locus that was very informative in a large FAD pedigree (Pulst et al. 1990a, b). We now report another polymorphism for the D21S13 locus that further increases the informativeness of this locus.     

A new EcoRI polymorphism at the D21S13 locus

Summary The D21S13 locus has shown linkage to a gene for familial Alzheimer disease (FAD) on chromosome 21 (St. George-Hyslop et al. 1987). The limited informativeness of probes for this locus have hindered precise mapping of the FAD locus and analysis of nonallelic heterogeneity in FAD (Schellenberg et al. 1988; St. George-Hyslop et al. 1987). We describe a new EcoRI polymorphism at the D21S13 locus that may be useful for the further study of FAD families.     

An insertion/deletion polymorphism at the D15S63 locus in the critical Prader-Willi syndrome region in 15q11-13

The probe YR9AB detects a two-allele insertion/ deletion polymorphism at the D15S63 locus.     

Characterization of five novel human genes in the 11q13-q22 region

The redundancy of sequences in dbEST has approached a level where contiguous cDNA sequences of genes can be assembled, without the need to physically handle the clones from which the ESTs are derived. This is termed EST based in silico gene cloning. With the availability of sequence chromatogram files for a subset of ESTs, the quality of EST sequences can be ascertained accurately and used in contig assembly. In this report, we performed a study using this approach and isolated five novel human genes, C11orf1-C11orf5, in the 11q13-q22 region. The full open reading frames of these genes were determined by comparison with their orthologs, of which four mouse orthologs were isolated (c11orf1, c11orf2, c11orf3 and c11orf5). These genes were then analyzed using several proteomics tools. Both C11orf1 and C11orf2 are nuclear proteins with no other distinguishing features. C11orf3 is a cytoplasmic protein containing an ATP/GTP binding site, a signal peptide located in the N-terminus and a similarity to the C. elegans protein "Probable ARP 2/3 complex 20kD subunit." C11orf4 is a peptide which displays four putative transmembrane domains and is predicted to have a cytoplasmic localization. It contains signal peptides at the N- and C-termini. C11orf5 is a putative nuclear protein displaying a central coiled coil domain. Here, we propose that this purely EST-based cloning approach can be used by modestly sized laboratories to rapidly and accurately characterize and map a significant number of human genes without the need of further sequencing.