The androgen receptor genotype was determined in the white blood cell DNA of 45 African-American, 39 non-Hispanic white, and 39 Asian (Chinese, Japanese) normal subjects and 68 patients with prostate cancer (57 whites), all of whom were residents of Los Angeles County. For each subject, we measured the number of repeats in the polymorphic CAG and GGC microsatellites of exon 1 of the androgen re...

The DNA polymerase-gamma (POLG) gene, which encodes the catalytic subunit of enzyme responsible for directing mitochondrial DNA replication in humans, contains a polyglutamine tract encoded by CAG repeats of varying length. The length of the CAG repeat has been associated with the risk of testicular cancer, and other genomic variants that impact mitochondrial function have been linked to breast...

BACKGROUND We recently reported that spinocerebellar ataxia type 2 (SCA2) caused familial parkinsonism in 2 brothers with predominant symptoms of resting tremor, rigidity, and bradykinesia that responded to levodopa. OBJECTIVE To investigate SCA2 as the possible cause of familial parkinsonism in our series and subsequently to analyze the correlation between the clinical manifestation and CAG ...

Prenatal exposure to testosterone has been hypothesised to effect lateralization by influencing cell death in the foetal brain. Testosterone binds to the X chromosome linked androgen receptor, which contains a polymorphic polyglutamine CAG repeat, the length of which is positively correlated with testosterone levels in males, and negatively correlated in females. To determine whether the length...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of CAG repeat polymorphism and X-chromosome Inactivation (XCI) pattern in Recurrent Spontaneous Abortions among Indian women which has not been hitherto explored. 117 RSA cases and 224 Controls were included in the study. Cases were recruited from two different hospitals--Lakshmi Fertility Clinic, Nellore and Fernandez Maternity Hospital,...

OBJECTIVE Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a common disease of the central nervous system. The interaction between inflammatory and neurodegenerative processes typically results in irregular neurological disturbances followed by progressive disability. Mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in neurodegenerative disorders. The DNA polymerase-gamma (POLG) gene, which encodes the catalytic subuni...

Trinucleotide repeat sequences are widely present in the human genome. The expansion of CAG repeats have been studied very extensively, and shown to be the causative mechanism of more than 40 neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases. In the present study, we performed a genome wide screening of CAG repeat expansions in non-neoplastic tissues of 212 breast cancer cases and 196 healthy popula...

More than 12 neurogenetic disorders are caused by unstable expansions of (CTG)•(CAG) repeats. The expanded repeats are unstable in germline and somatic cells, with potential consequences for disease severity. Previous studies have shown that contractions of (CAG)(95) are more frequent when the repeat tract is transcribed. Here we determined whether transcription can promote repeat expansion, us...

Huntington's disease (HD) is associated with the expansion of a CAG repeat in the huntingtin gene. Molecular analysis of the repeat in Japanese HD patients and normal controls was performed. The size of the CAG repeat ranged from 37 to 95 repeats in affected subjects and from seven to 29 in normal controls. A significant correlation was found between the age of onset and the CAG expansion. The ...

OGG1 and MSH2/MSH3 promote CAG repeat expansion at Huntington's disease (HD) locusin vivo during removal of oxidized bases from DNA. CSB, a transcription-coupled repair (TCR) protein, facilitates repair of some of the same oxidative lesions. In vitro, a knock down CSB results in a reduction of transcription-induced deletions at CAG repeat tract. To test the role of CSB in vivo, we measured inte...