Two brothers each had one normal upper limb; one had tridactylous ectrodactyly of one hand with normal forearm bones; the other had monodactyly of one hand with absent ipsilateral ulna. Both had monodactyly of the feet, absence of the tibiae, and unilateral bifurcation of the femur. A sister of the paternal grandfather was purportedly similarly affected. Since her parents and the father and paternal grandfather of the affected boys were normal, the pattern of inheritance of the trait in this family is presently unclear.

We report two Brazilian families with children who had anophthalmia and multiple congenital abnormalities and consanguineous parents. Among the five affected children, four had bilateral and one had unilateral anophthalmia. Autosomal recessive inheritance is demonstrated.

The Greig cephalopolysyndactyly syndrome in characterized by a set of craniofacial defects (macrocephaly, broad nasal root) leading to peculiar facial appearance, postaxial (occasionally preaxial) polydactyly of hands, preaxial (rarely postaxial) polydactyly of feet, and syndactyly of fingers and toes. Occasionally other skeletal or nonskeletal defects are present. This is an autosomal dominant trait with complete penetrance and variable expressivity. Prognosis for mental and physical development of the affected patients is good, surgery being indicated primarily for aesthetic and functional correction of polydactyly and syndactyly. We report on a Brazilian family in whom the mother and two of three sons were affected.

X-linked hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia (XLHED) is characterized by severe hypohidrosis, hypotrichosis, and hypodontia. The gene responsible for this pleiotropic syndrome (ED1) consists of 12 exons, 8 of them coding for a transmembrane protein (ectodysplasin-A; EDA-A) involved in the developmental process of epithelial-mesenchymal interaction. ED1 mutations that cause alterations in this protein lead to the XLHED phenotype. The major objective of the present study was to detect ED1 mutations in four Brazilian families with the XLHED phenotype and to compare them to the more than 60 different mutations already reported. DNA of the EDA-A coding exons was amplified by PCR, and single strand conformation analysis (SSCA) of the electrophoretic bands was carried out in polyacrylamide gel stained with silver nitrate. Two of these four families showed altered DNA band patterns. Subsequent DNA sequencing of the two mutated exons showed: (1) a 36 nucleotide deletion at exon 5 responsible for the loss of four Gly-X-Y repeats of the collagen subdomain of EDA-A; (2) a guanine deletion at exon 6 (966 or 967 sites) that alters EDA-A after amino acid 241 and leads to a premature ending at amino acid 279. This mutation at exon 6 seems not to have been reported previously and determines a truncated EDA-A without a part of its extracellular domain that contains the whole TNF homologue subdomain. These two DNA mutations are compatible with the XLHED phenotype. In the other two families the PCR-SSCA methodology was unable to detect any mutation responsible for the XLHED phenotype.

The dystrophin gene, located at Xp21, codifies dystrophin, which is part of a protein complex responsible for the membrane stability of muscle cells. Its absence on muscle causes Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a severe disorder, while a defect of muscle dystrophin causes Becker Muscular Dystrophy (DMB), a milder disease. The replacement of the defective muscle through stem cells transplantation is a possible future treatment for these patients. Our objective was to analyze the potential of CD34+ stem cells from umbilical cord blood to differentiate in muscle cells and express dystrophin, in vitro. Protein expression was analyzed by Immunofluorescence, Western Blotting (WB) and Reverse Transcriptase -Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). CD34+ stem cells and myoblasts from a DMD affected patient started to fuse with muscle cells immediately after co-cultures establishment. Differentiation in mature myotubes was observed after 15 days and dystrophin-positive regions were detected through Immunofluorescence analysis. However, WB or RT-PCR analysis did not detect the presence of normal dystrophin in co-cultures of CD34+ and DMD or DMB affected patients' muscle cells. In contrast, some CD34+ stem cells differentiated in dystrophin producers' muscle cells, what was observed by WB, reinforcing that this progenitor cell has the potential to originate muscle dystrophin in vitro, and not just in vivo like reported before.

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Our aim was to develop and apply a comprehensive noninvasive prenatal test (NIPT) by using high-coverage targeted next-generation sequencing to estimate fetal fraction, determine fetal sex, and detect trisomy and monogenic disease without parental genotype information. We analyzed 45 pregnancies, 40 mock samples, and eight mother-child pairs to generate 35 simulated datasets. Fetal fraction (FF) was estimated based on analysis of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) allele fraction distribution. A Z-score was calculated for trisomy of chromosome 21 (T21), and fetal sex detection. Monogenic disease detection was performed through variant analysis. Model validation was performed using the simulated datasets. The novel model to estimate FF was robust and accurate (r2= 0.994, p-value < 2.2e-16). For samples with FF > 0.04, T21 detection had 100% sensitivity (95% CI: 63.06 to 100%) and 98.53% specificity (95% CI: 92.08 to 99.96%). Fetal sex was determined with 100% accuracy. We later performed a proof of concept for monogenic disease diagnosis of 5/7 skeletal dysplasia cases. In conclusion, it is feasible to perform a comprehensive NIPT by using only data from high coverage targeted sequencing, which, in addition to detecting trisomies, also make it possible to identify pathogenic variants of the candidate genes for monogenic diseases.

We describe two sibs born to a consanguineous couple. Among other clinical findings both have mental retardation, short stature, facial and skeletal abnormalities characterized by hypertelorism, broad notched nasal tip, cleft lip/palate, campto-brachy-poly-syndactyly, fibular hypoplasia, and marked anomalies of foot structures. Facial signs of the reported patients resemble those present in the fronto-nasal "dysplasia" syndrome; however, the whole clinical picture in the present patients suggests a true MCA/MR syndrome, most likely inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. Clinical and genetic aspects of the present family are discussed.