Molecular and clinical correlations of deletions leading to Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies.

Human DMD cDNA probes have been used to delineate possible deletions in 160 affected males. Approximately 56% of these individuals had detectable deletions, 29% of which mapped to a region centered around 500 kb from the 5' end of the gene whereas 69% mapped to a region located centrally 1,200 kb from the 5' end. We have observed no correlation between the extent of a deletion, its location, and clinical severity of the associated disease. For some cases with deletions in the two high-frequency deletion regions, the predicted effect upon translational reading frame of the resultant dystrophin mRNA did not correlate with the associated disease phenotype.