Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) may be linked to the BF and HLA loci on human chromosome 6.

Although certain forms of epilepsy have long been suspected to be inherited, heterogeneity has made it difficult to find the genes responsible for any subtypes. We found that families ascertained through patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy show linkage with the BF and HLA loci on human chromosome 6. There is some evidence that the locus may be outside the HLA complex and no evidence as yet of an association with any allele of the HLA complex.

Segregation analysis of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.

We examined the inheritance of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME). We looked at both the trait of "epilepsy" and the trait of "epilepsy-plus-EEG abnormalities," since EEG abnormalities are frequently found in the clinically unaffected sibs of JME patients. We tested several modes of inheritance including the fully penetrant recessive and several two-locus models.