Miller-Dieker syndrome: lissencephaly and monosomy 17p.

Miller-Dieker syndrome, which includes lissencephaly and a characteristic phenotypic appearance, has been reported to have an autosomal recessive pattern of inheritance. However, we have found abnormalities of chromosome 17 in two of three unrelated patients with this syndrome, one with a ring chromosome 17 and the other with an unbalanced translocation resulting in partial monosomy of 17p13. A review of the literature revealed five additional patients in three families, who had Miller-Dieker syndrome and an abnormality of 17p. Thus, we propose that monosomy of distal 17p may be the cause of Miller-Dieker syndrome in some patients.