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Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) type IV is a dominantly inherited disorder that results from mutations in the type III collagen gene (COL3A1). We studied the structure of the COL3A1 gene of an individual with EDS type IV and that of her phenotypically normal parents. The proband was heterozygous for a 2-kb deletion in COL3A1, while her father was mosaic for the same deletion in somatic and germ cells. In fibroblasts from the father, approximately two-fifths of the COL3A1 alleles carried the deletion, but only 10% of the COL3A1 alleles in white blood cells were of the mutant species. The deletion in the mutant allele extended from intron 7 into intron 11. There was a 12-bp direct repeat in intron 7 and intron 11, the latter about 60 bp 5' to the junction. At the breakpoint there was a duplication of 10 bp from intron 11 separated by an insertion of 4 bp contained within the duplicated sequence. The father was mosaic for the deletion so that the gene rearrangement occurred during his early embryonic development prior to lineage allocation. These findings suggest that at least some of the deletions seen in human genes may occur during replication, rather than as a consequence of meiotic crossing-over, and that they thus have a risk for recurrence when observed de novo.

Bovine Marfan syndrome is a disorder that closely resembles human Marfan syndrome in its clinical signs and pathological lesions. The similarities between the human and bovine diseases suggest that similar metabolic defects could be responsible. Although indirect immunofluorescent assays for fibrillin in skin biopsies did not distinguish affected cattle from control animals, cultures of skin fibroblasts of affected animals were distinguished from normal, unrelated control animals and normal half-siblings on the basis of fibrillin staining. After 72 to 96 hours in culture, stained with anti-fibrillin monoclonal antibody 201, hyperconfluent fibroblast cultures of affected cattle had less immunoreactive fibrillin than control cultures, and the staining pattern was granular rather than fibrillar. Under similar culture conditions, normal bovine aortic smooth muscle cells produced large amounts of immunoreactive fibrillin, but smooth muscle cells from a single affected cow showed markedly less fibrillin staining. In pulse-chase metabolic labeling experiments with [35S]cysteine, dermal fibroblasts from 6 affected calves, incorporated far less fibrillin into the extracellular matrix than control cells. These findings are similar to those reported in human Marfan syndrome, and they suggest that the bovine Marfan syndrome, like the human disorder, is caused by a mutation in fibrillin, leading to defective microfibrillar synthesis.

A novel form of human thrombospondin was identified during the screening of a human fibroblast cDNA library. We report the cDNA sequence for 1.8 kb of the 3' end of the cDNA, plus an additional 937 bp of 3'-untranslated sequence. The translated sequence reveals a high degree of similarity to thrombospondin I. The homology ranges from 56 to 80% for different regions within the two proteins. The repeating segments of amino acid sequence identified in thrombospondin I were found to be conserved in thrombospondin II. The new form of thrombospondin hybridizes to a 7.5-kb message by Northern analysis. The THBS2 gene is located at the distal long arm of chromosome 6 at 6q27. The gene is transcribed in fibroblasts, smooth muscle cells, and an osteosarcoma cell line, at levels somewhat lower than that of thrombospondin I. Umbilical vein endothelial cells do not transcribe thrombospondin II under the conditions of this study. These findings suggest that previous studies of thrombospondin function need to be reassessed to identify the functions specific to each molecule.