Abstract: Consanguineous marriages are the crucial factors for several genetic disorders
and dreadful syndromes which are the bases of morbidity and mortality in the human
population. The genetic disorders are linked to abnormalities in either p or q
arms of specific chromosomes. However, reports in the literature are not firm
on specificity of phenotypic response to the precise genomic region. In view of
a paucity of literature on the subject and the controversies arising with respect
to the discordance in phenotypic response, this particular case was found interesting
for a report in the literature. This is about a baby whose mother was married
to her cousin (a consanguineous marriage). The parents had a family history of
cerebral palsy and mental retardation. Genetic analysis of the baby showed deletion
at 5p14 and the father had translocation between chromosome 5p13 and 10p14 while
the mother was genetically normal. The baby was born healthy but had several complications,
till he died at the age of 5. The different complications that the baby suffered
included: delayed motor activity and developmental disabilities, psychological
derrangement, mental retardation, frequent convulsions, microcephali, delayed
speech and language development, dysmorphic face, low set ears and hyper reactivity.
There was gross discordance in the specific genome region and the phenotypic observations
which appears to be due to the interaction between different loci at 5p in addition
to epigenetic influence. |