Parental mosaicism for trisomy 21: problems with its detection and an approach to determining its population rate

Mosaicism for Autosomal Trisomies: A Comprehensive Analysis of 1266 Published Cases Focusing on Maternal Age and Reproductive History

Mosaicism for autosomal trisomy is uncommon in clinical practice. However, despite its rarity among both prenatally and postnatally diagnoses, there are a large number of characterized and published cases. Surprisingly, in contrast to regular trisomies, no attempts at systematic analyses of mosaic carriers' demographics were undertaken. This is the first study aimed to address this gap. For that, we have screened more than eight hundred publications on mosaic trisomies, reviewing data including gender and clinical status of mosaic carriers, maternal age and reproductive history. In total, 596 publications were eligible for analysis, containing data on 948 prenatal diagnoses, including true fetal mosaicism (TFM) and confined placental mosaicism (CPM), and on 318 cases of postnatally detected mosaicism (PNM). No difference was found in maternal age between normal pregnancy outcomes with appropriate birth weight and those with intrauterine growth restriction. Unexpectedly, a higher proportion of advanced maternal ages (AMA) was found in normal outcomes compared to abnormal ones (abnormal fetus or newborn) and fetal losses, 73% vs. 56% and 50%, p = 0.0015 and p = 0.0011, correspondingly. Another intriguing finding was a higher AMA proportion in mosaic carriers with concomitant uniparental disomy (UPD) for chromosomes 7, 14, 15, and 16 compared to carriers with biparental disomy (BPD) (72% vs. 58%, 92% vs. 55%, 87% vs. 78%, and 65% vs. 24%, correspondingly); overall figures were 78% vs. 48%, p = 0.0026. Analysis of reproductive histories showed a very poor reporting but almost two-fold higher rate of mothers reporting a previous fetal loss from PNM cohort (in which almost all patients were clinically abnormal) compared to mothers from the TFM and CPM cohorts (with a large proportion of normal outcomes), 30% vs. 16%, p = 0.0072. The occurrence of a previous pregnancy with a chromosome abnormality was 1 in 13 in the prenatal cohort and 1 in 16 in the postnatal cohort, which are five-fold higher compared to published studies on non-mosaic trisomies. We consider the data obtained in this study to be preliminary despite the magnitude of the literature reviewed since reporting of detailed data was mostly poor, and therefore, the studied cohorts do not represent "big data". Nevertheless, the information obtained is useful both for clinical genetic counseling and for modeling further studies.

Germ-line transmission of trisomy 21: Data from 80 families suggest an implication of grandmaternal age and a high frequency of female-specific trisomy rescue

Background

Trisomy of chromosome 21 (T21; Down syndrome, DS) is the most common aneuploidy in live births. Though its etiology has been intensively studied for a half of century, there are surprisingly many problems awaiting their elucidation. Some of the open questions are related directly to germ line mosaicism for T21, other problems include the prevalence of males with non-mosaic trisomy over females (skewed sex ratio, SR), the genetic predisposition to non-disjunction, etc. Studies in families of gonadal mosaicism (GM) carriers might help resolving some of these problems.

Results

80 families of carriers of GM, in which the sex of the offspring had been specified, were identified in the literature and in logbooks of two local genetic units. Mothers in these families were relatively young: only 8% of mothers were 35 years old and older at the time of delivery of their first affected offspring while the proportion of grandmothers on the GM carrier's side aged 35 years old and older was significantly higher (39%). Postzygotic rescue of T21 due to error in the meiosis I had been proposed as a mechanism of parental GM formation in 78% of the families with known origin of the T21. For the other 22%, rescue of errors in the meiosis II or postzygotic mitotic non-disjunction was assumed. Mosaicism for T21 in successive generations was reported in at least 12 families. The proportion of mosaics among affected female offspring (14%) is significantly higher compared to that among affected male offspring (0%). Male preponderance (SR = 1.5) is found in non mosaic liveborn offspring with either maternally- or paternally transmitted T21. Among unaffected offspring of male carriers of GM there is a notable excess of females (SR = 0.27).

Conclusion

Both direct (results of cytogenetic and molecular study of the origin of trisomic line) and indirect (advanced grandmaternal age on the side of GM carrier) evidences allow to assume that significant proportion of the mosaic parents had been conceived as trisomics. Female-specific trisomy rescue and genetic predisposition to postzygotic non-disjunction has been suggested as mechanisms of formation of both GM and somatic mosaicism. Typical male preponderance in affected non mosaic offspring with either maternally- or paternally transmitted trisomy 21, indicates than meiotic events are not responsible for the skewed sex ratio in DS. However a female excess among unaffected offspring of male carriers of GM might be the result of meiotic non homologous co-orientation of chromosomes 21 and X in spermatogenesis.

On the origin of trisomy 21 Down syndrome

BACKGROUND

Down syndrome, characterized by an extra chromosome 21 is the most common genetic cause for congenital malformations and learning disability. It is well known that the extra chromosome 21 most often originates from the mother, the incidence increases with maternal age, there may be aberrant maternal chromosome 21 recombination and there is a higher recurrence in young women. In spite of intensive efforts to understand the underlying reason(s) for these characteristics, the origin still remains unknown. We hypothesize that maternal trisomy 21 ovarian mosaicism might provide the major causative factor.

RESULTS

We used fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with two chromosome 21-specific probes to determine the copy number of chromosome 21 in ovarian cells from eight female foetuses at gestational age 14-22 weeks. All eight phenotypically normal female foetuses were found to be mosaics, containing ovarian cells with an extra chromosome 21. Trisomy 21 occurred with about the same frequency in cells that had entered meiosis as in pre-meiotic and ovarian mesenchymal stroma cells.

CONCLUSION

We suggest that most normal female foetuses are trisomy 21 ovarian mosaics and the maternal age effect is caused by differential selection of these cells during foetal and postnatal development until ovulation. The exceptional occurrence of high-grade ovarian mosaicism may explain why some women have a child with Down syndrome already at young age as well as the associated increased incidence at subsequent conceptions. We also propose that our findings may explain the aberrant maternal recombination patterns previously found by family linkage analysis.