Normal intelligence and premature ovarian failure in an adult female with a 7.6 Mb de novo terminal deletion of chromosome 9p

Abstract

Distal deletion 9p is associated with gonadal dysfunction in XY individuals. Little is known about the gonadal function and fertility of XX females with this condition. We report on an affected 31-year-old infertile woman presenting with premature ovarian failure, mild dysmorphic features, a history of mild developmental delay and an otherwise normal female phenotype. Cytogenetic analysis showed a deletion 9p with the karyotype 46,XX,del(9)(p23-24) in lymphocytes. The subsequent oligonucleotide array-based CGH analysis with genomic DNA from peripheral blood revealed a terminal deletion of approximately 7.6 Mb. SNP microarray analyses of the patient and her unaffected parents confirmed the deletion breakpoint and revealed a de novo mutation of paternal origin. This is apparently the first description of an adult woman with a cytogenetically visible terminal deletion of chromosome 9p. The fertility problems observed in this patient complement earlier findings in prepubertal and pubertal 46,XX-girls with 9p deletions, who displayed a phenotype ranging from primary ovarian dysfunction and mild gonadotropin hyperresponses to positive menses. DMRT1 is hemizygous in our patient. We discuss the role of DMRT1 in female gonadal development.

Keywords: Human DMRT1; Hypergonadotropic hypogonadism female; Microdeletion 9p24; Ovarian function; Premature ovarian failure.