Maternal uniparental disomy for chromosome 14

Abstract

A girl carrying a de novo balanced 13-14 robertsonian translocation showed a clinical phenotype with severe hypotonia, hyperextensible joints, frontal bossing, asymmetric face, no mental retardation, severe scoliosis and motor delay. In situ hybridization analysis on chromosome spreads revealed the presence of the two centromeres in the rearranged chromosomes. Molecular analysis on genomic DNA showed the presence in the proposita of two chromosomes 14 of maternal origin and no chromosome 14 from the father indicating a maternal monocentric uniparental disomy for chromosome 14 (mUPD14). Our patient shows several similarities with other reported cases of mUPD 14, suggesting imprinting of a region(s) of chromosome 14 and defining a possible mUPD14 Syndrome.