Current status of human chromosome 14

Over the past three decades, extensive genetic, physical, transcript, and sequence maps have assisted in the mapping of over 30 genetic diseases and in the identification of over 550 genes on human chromosome 14. Additional genetic disorders were assigned to chromosome 14 by studying either constitutional or acquired chromosome aberrations of affected subjects. Studies of benign and malignant tumours by karyotype analyses and by allelotyping with a panel of polymorphic genetic markers have further suggested the presence of several tumour suppressor loci on chromosome 14. The search for disease genes on human chromosome 14 has also been achieved by exploiting the human-mouse comparative maps. Research on uniparental disomy and on the search for imprinted genes has supported evidence of epigenetic inheritance as a result of imprinting on human chromosome 14. This review focuses on the current developments on human chromosome 14 with respect to genetic maps, physical maps, transcript maps, sequence maps, genes, diseases, mouse-human comparative maps, and imprinting.