Restriction fragment length polymorphisms at the methylmalonyl CoA mutase locus in normal Chinese.

L-methylmalonyl-CoA mutase (MCM; E.C. 5,4,99,2) is the apoenzyme for catalyzing the isomerization of L-methylmalonyl-CoA to succinyl-CoA. Genetic deficiency of MCM leads to the accumulation of precursors and abnormal metabolites of L-methylmalonyl-CoA. This can be associated with fulminant metabolic acidosis, widespread secondary aberrations in systemic metabolic homeostasis, mental retardation, or even neonatal death. This disorder is termed methylmalonic acidemia (MMA). This report, describes the use of an authentic, full-length cloned human cDNA probe, MCM26, kindly provided by Dr. Fred Ledley, for Southern blot analysis of genomic DNA. The pattern of EcoRI, Sac I and Hind III restriction endonuclease sites is reported from 14 unrelated control individuals of Chinese background. A Southern blot by EcoRI to the MCM26b probe reveals invariant bands of 4.1, 3.8, and 2.2 kb respectively. By EcoRI to the MCM26c probe, 7.2 kb is invariant. By HindIII to the MCM26c probe, invariant bands are 4.8 and 2.7 kb respectively. By SacI to the MCMb probe, invariant bands are 17, 8.0, 6.0, 3.6 and 1.8 kb respectively, while the polymorphic band is at 5.6kb. When combined with more diverse samples and additional polymorphisms, this restriction fragment length polymorphism may be useful for genetic diagnostic and linkage studies of MCM in MMA.