We have gathered data that indicate Mendel's law of independent assortment of non-homologous chromosomes may be violated in two specific instances: inheritance of retinoblastoma in the human, and the DDK syndrome in the mouse. In both of these cases, the genotypic ratios observed among the progeny of individuals that are heterozygous at marker loci on two non- homologous chromosomes differ significantly from the ratios predicted by Mendel's second law. In heritable retinoblastoma, the offspring of males that are the founders of retinoblastoma pedigrees have more affected male children and fewer unaffected female children than predicted, (i.e., they transmit their Y-chromosome, together with the chromosome 13 carrying the mutant RB-1 gene, more frequently than expected and/or transmit their X- chromosome, together with the chromosome 13 carrying the wild-type RB-1 gene less frequently than expected). In the DDK syndrome, the offspring of one class of reciprocal F1 females backcrossed to DDK males fail to receive grandpaternally-derived combinations of markers on the X- chromosome and chromosome 11 with the expected frequency and receive grandmaternally-derived combinations with greater frequency than expected. There are some similarities between these two phenomena. In both: 1) a sex chromosome and an autosome are involved; 2) the particular chromosome combinations that appear with unexpected frequencies among the progeny are related by the grandparental origin of the alleles; and 3) sex-ratio distortion in favor of males is observed among the offspring. There are also dissimilarities between the two phenomena. In the case of retinoblastoma, the observed transmission ratio distortion for two non- homologous chromosomes appears among the offspring of males, while in the DDK syndrome, the distortion appears among the offspring of F1 females. In the offspring of the male retinoblastoma patients, the observed distortion is in favor of the grandpaternal/grandpaternal (and/or against the grandmaternal/grandmaternal) combination of the two chromosomes, but in the offspring of the F1 females in the DDK syndrome, the observed bias is against the grandpaternal/grandpaternal (and/or in favor of the grandmaternal/grandmaternal) combination of the two chromosomes.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01GM052332-01
Application #
2191312
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG2-MGN (Q1))
Project Start
1995-05-01
Project End
1998-04-30
Budget Start
1995-05-01
Budget End
1996-04-30
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
1995
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Temple University
Department
Miscellaneous
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19122
Pardo-Manuel de Villena, F; de la Casa-Esperon, E; Briscoe, T L et al. (2000) A genetic test to determine the origin of maternal transmission ratio distortion. Meiotic drive at the mouse Om locus. Genetics 154:333-42
de la Casa-Esperon, E; Pardo-Manuel de Villena, F; Verner, A E et al. (2000) Sex-of-offspring-specific transmission ratio distortion on mouse chromosome X. Genetics 154:343-50
Pardo-Manuel De Villena, F; de La Casa-Esperon, E; Williams, J W et al. (2000) Heritability of the maternal meiotic drive system linked to Om and high-resolution mapping of the Responder locus in mouse. Genetics 155:283-9
Pardo-Manuel de Villena, F; de la Casa-Esperon, E; Verner, A et al. (1999) The maternal DDK syndrome phenotype is determined by modifier genes that are not linked to Om. Mamm Genome 10:492-7
Naumova, A K; Leppert, M; Barker, D F et al. (1998) Parental origin-dependent, male offspring-specific transmission-ratio distortion at loci on the human X chromosome. Am J Hum Genet 62:1493-9
Latham, K E; Sapienza, C (1998) Localization of genes encoding egg modifiers of paternal genome function to mouse chromosomes one and two. Development 125:929-35
Naumova, A K; Olien, L; Bird, L M et al. (1998) Genetic mapping of X-linked loci involved in skewing of X chromosome inactivation in the human. Eur J Hum Genet 6:552-62
Pardo-Manuel de Villena, F; Naumova, A K; Verner, A E et al. (1997) Confirmation of maternal transmission ratio distortion at Om and direct evidence that the maternal and paternal ""DDK syndrome"" genes are linked. Mamm Genome 8:642-6
Pardo-Manual de Villena, F; Slamka, C; Fonseca, M et al. (1996) Transmission-ratio distortion through F1 females at chromosome 11 loci linked to Om in the mouse DDK syndrome. Genetics 142:1299-304
Pardo-Manuel de Villena, F; Sapienza, C (1996) Genetic mapping of DXYMov15-associated sequences in the pseudoautosomal region of the C57BL/6J strain. Mamm Genome 7:237-9

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