A NOVEL HEMOPHILIA-B DEFECT DUE TO PARTIAL DUPLICATION OF THE FACTOR-IX GENE

A patient with mild FIX deficiency was found to have partial duplication of the 3' region of the gene, giving, in addition to the a normal gene, another piece of DNA containing exons 5', 6', 7' and 8' and the intervening sequences. Cloning and sequencing of the junction region revealed that crossover occurred at nt 31927 in the 3' untranslated region of one chromosome/chromatid and nt 10640 in intron 4 of the other. No homology or topoisomerase specific sequences were observed in the crossover region. PCR and sequencing of illegitimate FIX transcripts from the patient's lymphocytes showed at least three different species of mRNAs. Translation of two of these 'novel' mRNAs should result in truncated proteins. Possibilities for the splicing of the mature mRNA are offered to explain the translation of a normal-size FM protein, which was the only product demonstrated on Western blot analysis.