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P Jarolim, HL Rubin, V Brabec and J Palek
Department of Biomedical Research, St Elizabeth's Medical Center, Tufts
University School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02135, USA.
Combined deficiency of ankyrin and spectrin represents the most common
biochemical abnormality in hereditary spherocytosis (HS). To examine
whether a decrease in ankyrin mRNA represents a frequent cause of this type
of HS, we took advantage of the reported (AC)n microsatellite polymorphism
in the 3' untranslated region of ankyrin cDNA. We first measured the number
of AC repeats in genomic DNA encoding erythrocyte ankyrin in 36 unrelated
Czech HS patients with combined ankyrin and spectrin deficiency and found
21 of these subjects (58%) to be heterozygotes for the (AC)n microsatellite
size. Further analysis of reticulocyte RNA showed that ankyrin cDNA from 7
of these 21 heterozygotes (33%) contained only one of the two ankyrin
alleles. We conclude that approximately 1/3 of ankyrin-deficient autosomal
dominant HS is caused by reduced expression of one ankyrin allele which, in
turn, is caused by either a reduced transcription of one allele of the
mutated ankyrin gene or abnormal processing or decreased stability of the
mutant ankyrin mRNA. Because ankyrin deficiency is detected in
approximately 60% of HS subjects, this result suggests that approximately
20% of all HS is caused by a decreased expression of one ankyrin mRNA
allele.
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