Abstract

Maternal uniparental disomy for chromosome 7 (UPD7) may present with a characteristic phenotype reminiscent of Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS). Previous studies have suggested that approximately 10% of SRS patients have maternal UPD7. We describe a girl with a mos47,XX,+mar/46,XX karyotype associated with the features of SRS. Chromosome painting using a chromosome 7 specific probe pool showed that the small marker was a ring chromosome 7 (r(7)). PCR based microsatellite marker analysis of the patient detected only one maternal allele at each of 16 telomeric loci examined on chromosome 7, but showed both paternal and maternal alleles at four centromeric loci. Considering her mosaic karyotype composed of diploid cells and cells with partial trisomy for 7p13-q11, the allele types obtained at the telomeric loci may reflect the transmission of one maternal allele in duplicate, that is, maternal UPD7 (complete isodisomy or homodisomy 7), whereas those at the centromeric loci were consistent with biparental contribution to the trisomic region. It is most likely that the patient originated in a 46,XX,r(7) zygote, followed by duplication of the maternally derived whole chromosome 7 in an early mitosis, and subsequent loss of the paternally derived ring chromosome 7 in a subset of somatic cells. The cell with 46,XX,r(7) did not survive thereafter because of the monosomy for most of chromosome 7. If the putative SRS gene is imprinted, it can be ruled out from the 7p11-q11 region, because biparental alleles contribute to the region in our patient.