Molecular investigation of the trinucleotide repeats within the Huntington disease gene in Southern Africa

September, Alison

Molecular investigation of the trinucleotide repeats within the Huntington disease gene in Southern Africa

Thesis / Dissertation

1999

Abstract

Huntington disease (HD) is an autosom 1 dominant, progressive neurodegenerative condition, which usually presents in mid-life. The disease-causing mutation was identified in 1993 and entails the expansion of an unstable repeat (CAG)n within exon 1 of the, HD gene (IT-15). A polymorphic (CCG)n repeat has been identified immediately 3' to the unstable disease-causing (CAG)n repeat, which is in linkage disequilibrium on HD chromosomes. This study was undertaken to investigate the polymorphic repeats; (CAG)n and (CCG)n within the HD gene, in a sub-group of HD patients and family members from a population where HD is infrequently observed. Primer pairs were used to amplify each trinucleotide repeat separately. Molecular investigations of 3 Southern African (SA) populations (SA indigenous black population, Mixed ancestry, and Caucasian populations) revealed that the (CAG)n repeat on the 300 non-HD associated chromosomes ranged from 11-37 repeats while repeats ranging from 38-101 were observed on the 106 HD-associated chromosomes analysed.

Keywords

Human Genetics

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