Importance of determining variations in the number of copies in newborns with autosomal aneuploidies.

Introduction

Aneuploidies are frequent genetic disorders in clinical practice. However, little is known about other genetic variants that may influence the final phenotype.

Objective

To determine the variations in the number of copies and regions with homozygosity greater than 0.5% or larger than 10 Mb in newborns with autosomal aneuploidies. Materials and methods: We performed a chromosomal microarray analysis on newborns with autosomal aneuploidies (n=7), trisomy 21 (n=5), and trisomy 18 (n=2) evaluated at the Hospital Antonio Lorena and Hospital Regional of Cusco, Perú, during 2018.

Results

We found pathogenic and probably pathogenic variants in the number of copies in other genomic regions different to chromosomes 21 or 18 in two neonates. Additionally, we found two variants bigger than 500 kpb of unknown pathogenicity.

Conclusions

Although the number of analyzed individuals was small, it is important to highlight that we found other variants in the number of copies that have been described in association with neurodevelopmental disorders, congenital anomalies, deafness, and short/tall stature, among others, in almost half of them, which will probably impact the phenotype negatively in patients with aneuploidies.