Patients homozygous for the 17p11.2 duplication in Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 1A disease

Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 1A disease is an inherited sensorimotor neuropathy that is most often associated with a duplication of chromosome 17p11.2. This region contains the gene of the peripheral myelin protein 22 (PMP22), which is responsible by a gene dosage effect for the Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 1A phenotype with 17p11.2 duplication. We performed a clinical, electrophysiological, and genetic study of a consanguinous Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 1A family with 4 affected siblings, 3 of whom were homozygous for the 17p11.2 duplication, the other a heterozygote. Comparison of phenotypes showed that the severity of the disease was variable among the homozygotes, one of whom was no more severely affected than the heterozygous sibling who was paucisymptomatic. These results suggest that the severity of the disease is not determined solely by the number of copies of the PMP22 gene.