Genetic mapping of the Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome with two highly-linked polymorphic DNA markers.

The Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) is an X-linked recessive genetic disease in which the molecular defect is unknown. In 15 families with WAS, seven restriction fragment length polymorphic loci from the X chromosome were used to map the disease locus. Of the eight intervals studied, the likelihood of the WAS gene lying between DXS7 (Xp11.3) and DXS14 (Xp11) was at least 128 times higher than that for any other interval. The most likely gene order is DXS84-OTC-DXS7-WAS-DXS14-DXS1-PGK-DXYS1. Close genetic linkage to DXS7 and DXS14 permits accurate prenatal diagnosis and carrier detection with greater than 98% confidence in fully informative WAS families.