Oculocutaneous albinism in a patient with 17p13.2-pter duplication - a review on the molecular syndromology of 17p13 duplication.

Background: Chromosomal duplications involving 17p13.3 have recently been defined as a new distinctive syndrome with several diagnosed patients. Some variation is known to occur in the breakpoints of the duplicated region and, consequently, in the phenotype as well.

Aims: We report on a patient, the fifth to our knowledge, a 4-year-old girl with a pure de novo subtelomeric 17p13.2-pter duplication. She presents all of the facial features described so far for this duplication and in addition, a unilateral palmar transversal crease and oculocutaneous albinism which has not been reported previously.

Methods: A detailed molecular description of the reported aberration and correlation with the observed phenotypical features based on a literature review. We discuss the possible molecular etiology of albinism in regard to the mode of inheritance.

Conclusion: The new data provided here may be useful for further genotype correlations in syndromes with oculocutaneous albinism, especially of autosomal dominant inheritance.