Aneuploidy is a crucial issue in human reproductive biology, accounting for both a significant proportion of miscarriages and, among liveborns, multiple congenital malformation syndromes such as Down Syndrome. Although the etiology of human aneuploidy remains poorly understood, recent studies have elucidated certain fundamental correlates of meiotic nondisjunction, such as altered recombination. These features are extraordinarily similar to those associated with chromosome misbehavior in Drosophila melanogaster females. Furthermore, these organisms also share a significant level of achiasmate chromosome nondisjunction. Here we describe in detail the processes of achiasmate chromosome segregation in Drosophila and discuss how they may be most effectively applied to our understanding of the etiology of human aneuploidy. In particular, we examine the possibility that similar “backup” mechanisms of chromosome segregation might function in mammalian meiosis, particularly mammalian females. Drawing upon observations made in flies, we also propose a new model for the segregation of achiasmate chromosomes in humans.

A symposium in honour of the centenary of the birth of Lionel Penrose, Galton Professor at UCL and editor of this journal from 1945 to 1965, was held on 13 March 1998 and attended by about 150 people. This included a number of distinguished scientists from several countries (particularly the USA) who returned to honour their mentor. The scientific theme of the day was the current understanding of genetic causes of mental handicap, a field in which Penrose made many major contributions. The programme is reproduced here. A detailed account of the meeting, including a summary of the papers presented is available from the Centre for Human Genetics, University College London, Wolfson House, 4 Stephenson Way, London, NW1 2HE.

[Email: hgadmin@galton.ucl.ac.uk or http://www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/chg]

From a vast selection of seminal papers by Lionel Penrose, we have chosen to reprint his inaugural lecture on Phenylketonuria delivered at University College on 21 January 1946. This was published in the Lancet (29 June 1946, pp. 949–953) and is reproduced by kind permission.

We feel that in 1998 it is well worth re-reading!

Replication error (RER) is defined as mutation events in repetitive DNA segments. To investigate further the RER phenomenon and reveal any differences in mutation outcome between different short tandem repeat (STR) loci, we have investigated the somatic mutation rate and the size distribution of new tumour alleles in four tetranucleotide STRs in a large material of unselected colorectal adenocarcinomas. DNA was extracted from the blood and carcinomas of 217 patients. All blood/tumour pairs were analysed using the STRs HUMTHO1, HUMFES/FPS, HUMVWA31/A and HUMF13A1. Mutations are detected at all four loci. There are substantial differences in mutation rate and mutation direction (i.e. expansion versus contraction) between different STR loci. In all four STRs, the majority of events represent gain or loss of a single repeat. Almost all new tumour alleles correspond to known alleles in a population database, indicating that these are also composed of integers of the four base pair repeat. There is no statistically significant size bias in the mutating alleles as compared to the allelic distribution in the population database.

It has been proposed that all live born females with Turner syndrome carry a cell line containing two sex chromosomes, which may be present at a low level of mosaicism (Hook & Warburton, 1983; Hassold et al. 1985; 1988; Connor & Loughlin, 1989). If the second sex chromosome is a Y, these patients are at risk of developing gonadoblastoma. In this study, 50 patients found to have a 45,X karyotype by conventional cytogenetic analysis, were screened by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), for the presence of Y chromosome sequences. Two patients were positive for six of the eight Y chromosome loci tested and additional cytogenetic analysis confirmed the presence of a marker chromosome, in 8% and 3% of cells respectively. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was used to confirm that the markers were of Y chromosome origin and helped to elucidate their structure. In addition, four other patients were found to have a Y chromosome by initial routine cytogenetic analysis. FISH, in conjunction with PCR, elucidated the structure of the Y chromosomes. This study illustrates the value of using a combination of cytogenetic and molecular techniques, to identify Y chromosome sequences in Turner syndrome.

Penrose's sib-pair papers (1935–1953) are discussed in relation to recent applications. His essential contribution that parental typing was an inefficient addition to sib-pair data for linkage detection remains. Parents now have even less to offer with contemporary markers in the detection of linkage, although not the enumeration of haplotypes. Attention is drawn to two little known papers by Penrose on multifactorial disease, and it is suggested that this term should replace polygenic in relation to family analyses. The convention established by Penrose, both as author and editor, of raw data being published alongside its analysis, which later fell into disuse on grounds of sheer bulk, can now be remedied by the Internet, and has been for the largest set of sib-pair data on diabetes (Davies et al. Nature371 (1994), 130–136). This is essential if the contributions to the identity and location of alleles possibly relevant to common disorders, none of which are likely to be more than suggestive in any single study, can be combined to assess consistency and joint evidence. Attention is drawn to a third little known paper by Penrose of high relevance to the strategy of familial investigations in multifactorial disorders. All five of the Penrose papers discussed here can be viewed at http://www.gene.ucl.ac.uk/anhumgen/

We performed a comprehensive analysis for mutations in the TSC1 gene using Southern blot analysis, and SSCP and heteroduplex analysis of amplified exons in 13 families with genetic linkage to the TSC1 region, 22 small families without linkage information, and 126 sporadic patients. 17 unique mutations were identified in 21 patients. Mutations were found in 7/13 (54%) TSC1-linked families, 1/22 (5%) small families without linkage, and 13 of 126 (10%) sporadic cases. The mutations were all chain-terminating, with 14 small deletions, 1 small insertion, and 6 nonsense mutations. In families with mutations, all individuals carrying a mutation met formal diagnostic criteria for TSC, apart from a 3-year-old girl who had inherited a deletion mutation, and who had no seizures, normal intelligence, normal abdominal ultrasound, and hypomelanotic macules only on physical exam. We assessed the incidence and severity of mental retardation in the 13 sporadic patients with TSC1 mutations versus the entire sporadic cohort, and found no significant difference. The observations indicate that TSC1 mutations are all inactivating, suggest that TSC1 disease occurs in only 15–20% of the sporadic TSC population, and demonstrate that presymptomatic TSC does occur.

We have refined polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays for the detection of sickle cell anaemia, the delta F 508 deletion causing cystic fibrosis, and the IVS1–110 mutation leading to beta-thalassaemia, allowing them to be successfully performed upon single cells using fluorescent primers. We have also assessed the possibility of detecting aneuploidies of chromosomes 13, 18 and 21 using a quantitative fluorescent polymerase chain reaction (QF-PCR) with primers flanking polymorphic short tandem repeat (STR) markers. Trisomies were readily diagnosed by the detection of tri-allelic patterns. However some heterozygote normal and trisomic diallelic patterns did not produce the expected ratios of amplified PCR products due to preferential DNA sequence amplification. Total allelic drop out (ADO) did not occur with any of the cells tested. Multiplex QF-PCR assays can be performed on a single cell in under 6 h and simultaneously provide diagnosis of single gene defects, sex determination and an indication of selected chromosome aneuploidy.

The novel gene, Diphor-1, was recently cloned from rat kidney and shown to increase phosphate uptake in cells when co-expressed with a Na+-Pi cotransporter, indicating that it may play a substantial role in cellular phosphate balance. Previously, the phosphate wasting disorder, autosomal dominant hypophosphatemic rickets (ADHR) was mapped to chromosome 12p13 by linkage analysis. In the present work, PDZK1, a PDZ domain-containing protein highly homologous to rat Diphor-1, was shown to be expressed in human kidney. Based upon its sequence similarity to rat Diphor-1, we considered PDZK1 a feasible candidate gene for ADHR. PDZK1 was found to localize to human chromosome 1q21, thereby ruling it out as a candidate for ADHR.

Rhnull is a syndrome serologically characterized by the deficiency of all Rh antigens on human red blood cells. Rhnull is divided into two types: regulator and amorph. Recently, Cherif-Zahar et al. proposed that the RHAG gene encoding the Rh50 glycoprotein is a candidate for inducing regulator type Rhnull. We investigated both the RH and RHAG genes in an Rhnull individual. The reticulocytes from the propositus had RHD, RHcE, and RHCe transcripts without any mutation. However, the sequence analysis of RHAG cDNA showed a deletion of 122 bp from nucleotide 946 to 1067. This deletion was revealed to be due to a homozygous splicing mutation, which is a single base substitution at the consensus sequence of the splicing acceptor site (AG→AT). The mutation appeared to break the ‘GT-AG’ splicing rule and to cause 122 bp exon skipping accompanied by a frameshift. This study confirms that the RHAG gene is the most likely candidate for the ‘regulator’ gene of Rhnull cases.

Cystathionine β synthase (CBS) is a key enzyme in homocysteine metabolism. We have examined four apparently non-functional polymorphisms in the CBS gene and have determined their frequency, degree of linkage disequilibrium and association with plasma homocysteine levels. The polymorphisms are a 68 bp insertion in exon 8, C699T in exon 8, C1080T in exon 11 and C1985T in the 3′ untranslated region. 785 individuals participating in the European Atherosclerosis Research Study II (EARSII), from 11 countries across Europe were genotyped for these polymorphisms. The 68bp insertion had the highest frequency in the UK and in the Middle region, with a lower frequency in the Baltic and the South (p=0.01), and the exon 11 polymorphism had the highest frequencies of the rare allele in the Baltic (p<0.05). There was a high degree of linkage disequilibrium between the polymorphisms (p<0.001 overall), except between C699T and the C1985T, with three common haplotypes accounting for nearly 80% of chromosomes. Examination of the association between these polymorphisms and plasma homocysteine levels revealed that the carriers of the rare alleles of the C699T, C1080T and C1985T polymorphisms had lower plasma homocysteine concentrations than those homozygous for the common alleles, although these differences were not statistically significant. The thermolabile valine variant caused by a substitution of a C for a T at nucleotide 677 in the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) has previously been shown to have profound effects on plasma levels of homocysteine in this sample, but the homocysteine-raising effect associated with this thermolabile variant was not seen in carriers of the 68 bp insertion, with this interaction being statistically significant (p<0.001). These data demonstrate that variation in the CBS gene as detected with these four polymorphisms, had no statistically significant effect on plasma homocysteine levels in these healthy young men. However, the presence of the 68 bp insertion, which is found in approximately 7.5% of individuals in the populations of Europe sampled, abolishes the raising effect of thermolabile MTHFR Val/Val genotype, and may be of importance in the situation of high homocysteine.

Inaugural Lecture delivered at University College on 21 Jan. 1946 and reprinted with permission from The Lancet, 29 June 1946, pp. 949–953

For academic purposes, eugenics is defined as the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally. This formula allows many different interpretations. The subject matter might involve almost any material studied in medicine, psychology or social science. In the light of knowledge of its frequent misuse, inclusion of the term “racial” in the definition seems unfortunate. A racial quality is presumably any character which differs in frequency or which (when it is metrical) differs in average value in two or more large groups of people. No qualities have been found to occur in every member of one race and in no member of another. Furthermore, as Morant (1939) has shown in his analysis of European populations, differences between average measurements in the so-called races are often much smaller than commonly supposed. The qualities by which people differ can be treated as legitimate material for scientific investigation without employing any invidious concept of race. The human race constitutes the field of eugenic inquiry.

A popular view of eugenics, which has in the past been encouraged by propaganda groups such as eugenic societies and human betterment foundations, implies active interference in human reproduction. The general grounds for interference are often held to be that civilisation has tended to reverse the process of natural selection because the weaklings are now being fostered at the expense of the naturally strong. Not only are the physically and mentally inferior prevented from perishing in infancy by the activities of medical and social services but also, when the weaklings grow up, they are supposed to be more fertile than the normal. As Karl Pearson (1909) once put it, “we have suspended the racial purgation maintained in the less developed communities by natural selection.” Degeneration of the physical and mental level of civilised peoples is believed to be inevitable unless eugenic measures are taken to counteract it.

Clues regarding candidate genes which influence susceptibility to spina bifida and anencephaly come from the identification of folate-associated risk factors and from studies of mouse mutants showing neural tube anomalies. On this basis we selected five candidate genes; CBS, MS, MTHFR, T (Brachyury) and BRCA1 for genetic analysis in 31 Dutch and 48 British NTD families. Ten polymorphisms, two for each gene, were used in transmission tests for disequilibrium (TDT). In six instances more than 50 transmissions from heterozygous parents could be examined. Using TDT we find evidence for an association between an allele at the T gene and liability to NTD in the embryo. Data from British and Dutch populations showed the same trend and in combination gave a χ2TDT=4.89, P=0.03 (OR 2.39, CI 95% 1.02–5.61). No association, in either population group, was found for CBS, MS and MTHFR, the enzymes most directly associated with the known risk factors in folate metabolism. The possibility of complex genetic interactions was explored; the data show that a Gly919 MS variant occurs more frequently in combination with the MTHFR thermolabile variant in mothers of NTD offspring (OR 3.94, CI 95% 1.0–16.3).

A number of localizations for the putative susceptibility gene(s) have been identified for both Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. In a genome wide scan, Hugot et al. (1996) identified a region on chromosome 16 which appeared to be responsible for the inheritance of inflammatory bowel disease in a small proportion of families. Subsequent work has suggested that this localization is important for susceptibility to Crohn's disease rather than ulcerative colitis (Ohmen et al. 1996; Parkes et al. 1996). We investigated the contribution of this localization to the inheritance of inflammatory bowel disease in 54 multiplex Australian families, and confirmed its importance in a significant proportion of Crohn's disease families; we further refined the localization to a region near to D16S409, obtaining a maximum LOD score of 6.3 between D16S409 and D16S753.

HNA is an autosomal dominant recurrent focal neuropathy involving the brachial plexus. The etiology of HNA is unknown but the genetic defect most likely affects a non-neuronal tissue. We previously described linkage to chromosome 17q24–q25 in two HNA-families. Here we report the mutation analysis of two candidate genes: a cDNA encoding a putative sialyltransferase and the SFRS2 splicing factor including the c-myb ET-locus which is encoded on the opposite strand of the SFRS2 gene. The complete protein coding regions of both genes were studied by direct DNA sequencing. We did not find a disease associated mutation indicating that these genes are most likely not involved in the pathogenesis of HNA. However, we identified and characterized a rare AvaII polymorphism in the SFRS2 gene and detected a sequencing error, leading to an amino acid change (Val11Leu) in the published sequence of the putative sialyltransferase.

The analysis of seven different age cohorts (697 individuals from 10 to 109 years old) revealed age-related changes in the 3′APOB-VNTR genotype pool. By recoding the 3′APOB-VNTR alleles into three size-classes (small, S, 26–34 repeats; medium, M, 35–39 repeats; large, L, 41–55 repeats), an age-related convex trajectory of the frequency of SS homozygotes was found. The frequency of SS in the genotype pool increased from the group aged 10–19 years (3.06±1.74%) to that aged 40–49 years (8.51±4.07%). Then it declined reaching the minimum value in centenarians (1.58±0.90%). The observed trajectory is in agreement with that expected by assuming crossing of mortality curves relevant to subgroups of individuals having different genotypes.

Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterised by the development of benign tumors in multiple organs often causing serious neurologic impairment. To develop a reliable genetic test for TSC, two-dimensional electrophoresis with denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (2D DGGE) has been developed to detect mutations in TSC1. The 23 exons of TSC1 were amplified using two rounds of PCR. In the first round, all coding regions of TSC1 were amplified in four fragments ranging in size from 7.4 kb to 9.9 kb. In the second round, 32 fragments representing 23 exons were amplified using primers designed to avoid overlapping fragments and with a GC clamp on one end to optimise melting characteristics. These exon fragments were then separated by size in the first dimension using a polyacrylamide gel, and by melting characteristics in the second dimension using a urea/formamide gradient to yield 32 distinct bands. If a mutation is present, four bands instead of one, are typically observed. During the development of this assay, we analysed 63 patient samples with known TSC1 mutations from prior studies. These 63 patients had 68 known mutations or polymorphisms. With DGGE, all 68 of these were identified (45 point mutations, 3 small insertions, 20 small deletions) and an additional 27 single base variants were discovered. To evaluate the assay, we analysed 19 of these samples in a blinded study. In the blinded analysis, 19/20 (95%) known mutations or polymorphisms were detected. The single missed mutation in the blinded analysis could be identified in retrospect and the assay was modified accordingly. During this study, we identified 2 new mutations (exon 8 and exon 15), a new polymorphism (intron 4), and the first variant identified in a non-coding exon (exon 2).

The entire coding region of the TSC1 gene has been screened for mutations in 79 unrelated patients with tuberous sclerosis. Causative mutations have been found in 27 of these patients and five other variations in the gene have been identified. 26 of the mutations are predicted to cause premature truncation of the protein product of the gene and one mutation is in a splice site. The mutation screen has revealed that TSC1 mutations are rarer in sporadic tuberous sclerosis patients than in familial cases. We have also found that the only previously described case of non-penetrance can no longer be described as such, and that a single ungual fibroma is not necessarily diagnostic of tuberous sclerosis, important findings for the genetic counselling of tuberous sclerosis patients.

Coeliac Disease (CD) is a gluten sensitive enteropathy characterised by villous atrophy and crypt cell hyperplasia. There is a tight HLA association between CD and the HLA DQ alleles DQA1∗0501, DQB1∗0201 (DQ2), arranged in either cis- or trans- configuration, are found in 98.9% of cases in Northern European populations and 80% in Greeks and Ashkenazi Jews resident in Israel. We have previously shown that the HLA alleles and CD do not co-segregate in families multiply affected with CD, suggesting that the HLA association is entirely due to the necessity to have these normal DQ alleles for CD to manifest, and that the main genetic predisposition lies at a locus other than the MHC. It is therefore possible to conduct genetic linkage studies in order to isolate the non HLA genes which predispose to CD. Recently a group conducted a genome screen for the non HLA genes in an affected sib-pair analysis and identified four non HLA loci with positive lod scores. We examined these loci using a pedigree based linkage study. Our pedigree sample consisted of a cohort of 21 families with 60 affected individuals and 125 unaffected family members. We used 11 microsatellite markers at the loci implicated and analysed the genotype data using both MLINK and MFLINK to detect linkage. The MLINK and MFLINK analyses did not provide any evidence to support the earlier findings, although the difficulties involved in analysing complex diseases mean that one cannot be certain that these regions do not harbour susceptibility loci, at least in some families.

To examine the possible internal heterogeneity within the Basque population, nine samples typed for several HLA loci were compiled and HLA-A, B, C and DR loci were analysed. First, the shared features of HLA in Basques were analysed by principal component analysis and genetic distances. Two major Basque dialect groups (‘French’ and ‘Spanish’) were considered. FST statistics were computed and corrected for sampling intensity. The dialectal and political division did not seem to differentiate these two groups genetically. Analysis of Molecular Variance also failed to show consistently significant genetic variance components between French and Spanish Basques. Thus, in this particular example, linguistic diversity does not seem to correlate with a genetic stratification.

A genetic polymorphism is responsible for determining that some humans express lactase at high levels throughout their lives and are thus lactose tolerant, while others lose lactase expression during childhood and are lactose intolerant. We have previously shown that this polymorphism is controlled by an element or elements which act in cis to the lactase gene. We have also reported that 7 polymorphisms in the lactase gene are highly associated and lead to only 3 common haplotypes (A, B and C) in individuals of European extraction. Here we report the frequencies of these polymorphisms in Caucasians from north and south Europe and also from the Indian sub-continent, and show that the alleles differ in frequency, the B and C haplotypes being much more common in southern Europe and India. Allelic association studies with lactase persistence and non-persistence phenotypes show suggestive evidence of association of lactase persistence with certain alleles. This association was rather more clear in the analysis of small families, where haplotypes could be determined. Furthermore haplotype and RNA transcript analysis of 11 unrelated lactase persistent individuals shows that the persistence (highly expressed) allele is almost always on the A haplotype background. Non-persistence is found on a variety of haplotypes including A. Thus it appears that lactase persistence arose more recently than the DNA marker polymorphisms used here to define the main Caucasian haplotypes, possibly as a single mutation on the A haplotype background. The high frequency of the A haplotype in northern Europeans is consistent with the high frequency of lactase persistence.