"Balanced" karyotypes in six abnormal offspring of balanced reciprocal translocation normal carrier parents

Among 6800 consecutive blood samples studied for clinical cytogenetic diagnosis, we identified 30 families in which one parent of the proband had a balanced reciprocal autosomal translocation (excluding Robertsonian rearrangements). Twenty-eight of the 30 families had a malformed and/or mentally retarded proband: 19 with an unbalanced derived chromosome, 3 with abnormalities involving chromosomes other than those in the translocation, 5 with a "balanced" reciprocal translocation, and 1 with a normal karyotype. We hypothesize that the latter 6 affected probands with "balanced" karyotypes could be abnormal due to submicroscopic deletions and duplications as was originally suggested by Jacobs [1984]. Particularly in these 6 families, 83% of translocation breakpoints were associated with fragile sites, more than expected by chance (P < 0.025). This supports the report of an association between fragile sites and constitutional chromosome breakpoints by Hecht and Hecht [1984]. To explain these findings, we propose that autosomal fragile sites are unstable areas which predispose to breaks and unequal crossing over near the fragile site breakpoints creating minute duplications and deletions. Consequently, newborn infants inheriting a seemingly "balanced" karyotype from a normal parent with a balanced reciprocal translocation may still be at an increased risk of being malformed and/or developmentally delayed because of submicroscopic chromosomal imbalances.