Polymerase chain reaction fiber analysis and somatic mosaicism in autopsied tissue from a man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Single muscle fibers, obtained at autopsy from a 22-year-old man with Duchenne muscular dystrophy were examined immunocytochemically and also using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Dystrophin-positive cells were widespread in skeletal, cardiac, smooth muscle, and in brain cells. PCR and Southern blot analyses of DNA from peripheral blood lymphocytes revealed a deletion of exon 45 in the dystrophin gene. With PCR of single fibers, three bands corresponding to exons 44, 45, and 47 were present in the normal control muscle fibers and dystrophin-positive fibers from the patient, while only two bands, exons 44 and 47, were observed in dystrophin-negative fibers. Therefore, in this patient, the genotype of dystrophin-positive fibers differed from that of the dystrophin-negative fibers, possibly because of a somatic mosaicism for deletion in the dystrophin gene. A mutation of the dystrophin gene may have occurred in one cell at an early stage of ontogenesis.