Molecular and clinical evaluation of a patient hemizygous for TIGR/MYOC.

OBJECTIVE

To determine if a patient with an interstitial deletion of chromosome 1 is hemizygous for the TIGR/MYOC gene and if that patient has glaucoma.

METHODS

A patient with an interstitial deletion of chromosome 1 was clinically examined for evidence of glaucoma. DNA samples from the patient and her family were used for molecular studies to determine the boundaries of the chromosome 1 deletion using polymorphic markers located on chromosome 1q21 to 1q24. Additional markers located in the vicinity of the TIGR/MYOC gene, including 2 derived from the ends of the gene, were used to determine if it was included in the deletion.

RESULTS

The patient and her family showed no evidence of glaucoma. Molecular analysis demonstrated that a complex deletion of the maternal copy of chromosome 1 included the entire TIGR/MYOC gene.

CONCLUSIONS

We have determined that the patient has only 1 functional copy of TIGR/MYOC. The lack of clinical evidence of glaucoma suggests that haploinsufficiency of the TIGR/MYOC protein is not the cause of early-onset glaucoma associated with mutations in TIGR/MYOC.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Missense and nonsense mutations in the TIGR/MYOC gene have been associated with juvenile- and adult-onset primary open-angle glaucoma. Although many different mutations have been correlated with the disease, the underlying genetic mechanism (haploinsufficiency, gain of function, or a dominant negative effect) remains unknown. Information regarding the genetic mechanism responsible for TIGR/MYOC-associated glaucoma is necessary for further studies designed to develop transgenic animal models and gene-related therapy.