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R3-R4 deletion in the PRNP gene is associated with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD)

Journal Article · · American Journal of Human Genetics
OSTI ID:134186

There are conflicting reports on the association of deletions in the PRNP gene on chromosome 20 with CJD, a rapidly progressive fatal spongiform encephalopathy. We accumulated data suggesting that a deletion of R3-R4 type (parts of the third and fourth repeats are deleted from the area of four repeating 24 bp sequences in the 5{prime} region of the gene) is causing CJD. Screening of 129 unaffected control individuals demonstrated presence of a deletion of R2 type in four (1.55% of the studied chromosomes), but none of them had the R3-R4 type. Of 181 screened patients with spongiform encephalopathies, two had a deletion of R3-R4 type with no other mutations in the coding sequence. Both patients had a classical rapidly progressive dementing disease and diffuse spongiform degeneration, and both cases were apparently sporadic. The same R3-R4 type of deletion was detected in three additional neuropathologically confirmed spongiform encephalopathy patients, of which two had other known pathogenic mutations in the PRNP gene: at codon 178 on the methionine allele exhibiting the phenotype of fatal familial insomnia, and codon 200 causing CJD with severe dementia; the third was a patient with iatrogenic CJD who developed the disease after treatment with growth hormone extracted from cadaveric human pituitary glands. In all cases the deletion coincided with a variant sequence at position 129 coding for methionine.

OSTI ID:
134186
Report Number(s):
CONF-941009--
Journal Information:
American Journal of Human Genetics, Journal Name: American Journal of Human Genetics Journal Issue: Suppl.3 Vol. 55; ISSN AJHGAG; ISSN 0002-9297
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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