Prenatal Screening for Imprinting Anomalies Implicated in Beckwith Wiedemann and Silver Russell Syndromes

Losses of imprinting are involved in various syndromes. Those occurring in the 11p15 region lead to Beckwith-Wiedemann and Silver-Russell Syndromes. These losses of imprinting follow a mosaic pattern, rendering their detection difficult, especially given the scarcity of available DNA in amniotic fluid. Thus, in spite of growing demand, prenatal diagnosis (PND) for imprinting abnormalities of the 11p15 region is not available. The recent development of a quantitative PCR method that permits the methylation index (MI) of imprinted regions to be calculated renders PND technically possible. Nevertheless, because of the mosaic nature of these anomalies, it is essential to verify that the methylation pattern of the 11p15 region obtained from the amniotic fluid matches that obtained from the blood.