Showing papers on "MERTK published in 2002"

Retinal Dystrophy Due to Paternal Isodisomy for Chromosome 1 or Chromosome 2, with Homoallelism for Mutations in RPE65 or MERTK, Respectively

Abstract: Uniparental disomy (UPD) is a rare condition in which a diploid offspring carries a chromosomal pair from a single parent. We now report the first two cases of UPD resulting in retinal degeneration. We identified an apparently homozygous loss-of-function mutation of RPE65 (1p31) in one retinal dystrophy patient and an apparently homozygous loss-of-function mutation of MERTK (2q14.1) in a second retinal dystrophy patient. In both families, the gene defect was present in the patient's heterozygous father but not in the patient's mother. Analysis of haplotypes in each nuclear kindred, by use of DNA polymorphisms distributed along both chromosomal arms, indicated the absence of the maternal allele for all informative markers tested on chromosome 1 in the first patient and on chromosome 2 in the second patient. Our results suggest that retinal degeneration in these individuals is due to apparently complete paternal isodisomy involving reduction to homoallelism for RPE65 or MERTK loss-of-function alleles. Our findings provide evidence for the first time, in the case of chromosome 2, and confirm previous observations, in the case of chromosome 1, that there are no paternally imprinted genes on chromosomes 1 and 2 that have a major effect on phenotype.

Mantle cell lymphomas express a distinct genetic signature affecting lymphocyte trafficking and growth regulation as compared with subpopulations of normal human B cells.

Abstract: Differential gene expression analysis, using high-density microarray chips, demonstrated 300-400 genes to be deregulated in mantle cell lymphomas (MCLs) compared with normal B-cell populations. To investigate the significance of this genetic signature in lymphoma etiology and diagnostics, we selected 90 annotated genes involved in a number of cellular functions for further analysis. Our findings demonstrated a normal gene expression of CCR7, which indicated a normal homing to primary follicles, which was in contrast to other receptors for B-cell trafficking, such as a significant down-regulation for CXCR5 and CCR6, as well as down-regulation of IL4R involved in differentiation. This indicated that the malignant transformation of a normal B cell could have appeared during the transition of a primary follicle to a germinal center, i.e., after an initial B-cell activation. Genes involved in blockage of antiproliferative signals in normal cells were also deregulated, e.g., gene expression of TGF beta 2 and Smad3 was suppressed in MCLs. Furthermore, lymphoproliferative signal pathways were active in MCLs compared with normal B cells, because genes encoding, e.g., IL10R alpha and IL18 were up-regulated, as were oncogenes like Bcl-2 and MERTK. Genes encoding receptors for different neurotransmitters mediating B-cell stimulation, such as norepinephrine and cannabinoids were also up-regulated, again illustrating deregulation of a complex network of genes involved in growth and differentiation. Furthermore, hierarchical cluster analysis revealed two subpopulations of MCLs, which indicates that despite the homogeneous and strong overexpression of cyclin D1, further subtyping might be possible.