title: Reduced penetrance of the Huntington's disease mutation.
abstract: Controversy persists concerning the significance of Huntington disease (HD) alleles in the 36-39 repeat range. Although some clinically affected persons have been documented with repeats in this range, elderly unaffected individuals have also been reported. We examined 10 paternal transmissions of HD alleles of 37-39 repeats in collateral branches of families with de novo HD. All 10 descendants, including many who are elderly, are without symptoms of HD. Forty percent of the transmissions were unstable, although none varied by more than one repeat. The observation that individuals with alleles of 37-39 repeats may survive unaffected beyond common life expectancy supports the presence of reduced penetrance for HD among some persons with repeat sizes which overlap the clinical range. Non-penetrance may be increased in the collateral branches of de novo mutation families when compared to penetrance estimates from patient series. There was no CAA-->CAG mutation for the penultimate glutamine in either a de novo expanded 42 repeat allele or the corresponding non-penetrant 38 repeat allele in a family with fresh mutation to HD.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Neurogenetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston 02114, USA.
authors.forename: S M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: McNeil
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Novelletto
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Srinidhi
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Barnes
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kornbluth
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Altherr
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Wasmuth
authors.forename: J F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Gusella
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: MacDonald
authors.forename: R H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Myers
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005787:Gene Frequency; D006579:Heterozygote; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009154:Mutation; D010375:Pedigree; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D018911:Trinucleotide Repeats