A search for uniparental disomy in carriers of supernumerary marker chromosomes.

As there is some evidence that individuals bearing supernumerary marker chromosomes (SMCs) might have an increased risk of being uniparentally disomic for the structurally normal homologues of the SMC, we made a systematic search for uniparental disomy of the autosomal homologues from which SMCs were derived. Of the 22 families studied, a biparental origin of the normal homologues was demonstrated in 21, and 1 case of paternal isodisomy of chromosome 6 was detected in the carrier of a supernumerary marker ring chromosome 6 which itself was of maternal origin. Our results confirm that uniparental disomy may be found in association with SMCs, but until more cases are studied we can only speculate on their frequency and the mechanism(s) which result in this phenomenon.