Familial clustering

Ng BL, Ng HC, Goh KT, Ho B Helicobacter pylori in familial clusters based on antibody profile. FEMS Immunol Med Microbiol 2001 30 139-142. 

Sleegers, K., Roks, G., Theuns, J. etal. Familial clustering and genetic risk for dementia in a genetically isolated Dutch population. Brain 127 1641-1649, 2004. 

Freedman Bl, Soucie M, Stone SM, Pegram S. Familial clustering of end-stage renal disease in blacks with HiV-associated nephropathy. Am J Kid Dis 1999 34 254-258. 

After 5 years of diabetes, the risk of nephropathy rises rapidly. However, only a subset of patients are susceptible and only a small proportion develop total renal failure, predominantly those with a familial clustering and parents with hypertensive disease. 

Carter and colleagues have demonstrated that familial clustering of prostate cancer can be explained by Mendelian inheritance of a rare autosomal dominant allele, which accounts for 9% of aU prostate cancer and 45% of disease reported in men under the age of 55. Genome-wide scans have identified potential prostate cancer susceptibility loci on chromosomes 1, 2q, 12p, 15q, 16p, and 16q however. 

Approximately half of the families with the Li-Fraumeni cancer syndrome carry one mutant p53 allele in somatic cells (Malkin et al., 1990 Srivastava et al., 1990 see review in Kleihues et al., 1997). This disease is characterized by familial clustering of various cancers, particularly early-onset breast cancer, sarcomas, leukemias, and brain and adrenocortical tumors. Mice with targeted nonfunctional p53 alleles provide an experimental model for this disorder. Early spontaneous tumors, primarily lymphomas and sarcomas, arise frequently in p53 / and p53+/ mice, reflecting the Li-Fraumeni syndrome in these respects. Curiously, mammary and brain tumors are uncommon in p53 knockout mice (Donehower, 1996b Eng et al., 1997). 

In autoimmune thyroid diseases, a marked gender difference in prevalence is reported with a 5- to 10-fold excess in females (Manji et al., 2006 Rendl and Sailer, 2001). A significant family clustering of Graves disease or Hashimoto s thyroiditis was observed in 40—50% of patients, who reported another family member with thyroid disorders (Manji et al., 2006). 

Guttman-Yassky E, Cohen A, Kra-Oz Z et al 2004 Familial clustering of classic Kaposi sarcoma. Infect Dis 189 2023—2026... 

The 20 kb polymorphism has also been studied and in a small family cluster (GM2226), appeared to segregate with the LN mutation. Further studies are in progress. 

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