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Etiological and epidemiological studies of triploid and hydatidiform molar conceptuses were done using HLA polymorphism. The segregation of HLA markers allowed to know the etiology of 25 triploidies and 19 hydatidiform moles. Five other moles and a post molar choriocarcinoma were also studied by molecular hybridization. This confirms that triploidies in about 3/4 of the cases involved two sets of paternal chromosomes mainly by di-sperm. Hydatidiform moles from Algeria, France and Senegal were all of androgenic origin excepted for one case. DNA analysis of the choriocarcinoma demonstrated the presence of a paternal marker suggesting for this case a direct cellular lineage from the mole. Positive associations with HLA A 28 and B 7 were found which could be related to gametogenesis-fecundation dysfunction. A slight excess of antigens shared by parents of triploidies was shown. This was not observed for parents of hydatidiform moles but when they shared HLA antigens a preferential inheritance in the mole of the shared specificities was observed. This relative compatibility of the molar conceptus with the mother may be an element of the process that prevent its early rejection.

Determination of HLA antigens can be used for prenatal diagnosis of some congenital anomalies such as adrenal hyperplasia (21-hydroxylase deficiency). This necessitates rigourous HLA typing of fetal cells cultivated in vitro. The method we have developed utilizes microcytotoxicity and quantitative microabsorption tests which have been adapted to the types of cells found in these cultures.

In cases of artificial insemination for genetic indication, it may be useful to determine that in fact the foetus is the result of AID. Chromosome markers may or may not provide an answer, when HLA typing of amniotic fluid cells can.

A prenatal diagnosis of fragile X fra(X)(q28) has been performed in a pregnant woman obligate carrier of fra(X) by analysis of amniotic fluid cells taken by amniocentesis. The fra(X) has been observed in 30% (8/26) of the metaphases of the male fetus. These results were obtained within 10 days after amniocentesis using the in situ technique on cells grown first in Ham Medium supplemented with newborn calf serum and a serum substitute and changed for the last 19 hours with Tc 199 medium with 5% newborn calf serum and methotrexate (10 mg/l). This technique showed that fra(X) is not a clonal phenomenon and that its expression is related to the cell types and the origin of the studied cells.

Banding technique were applied to cell lines which had been established earlier from spontaneous human abortions and preserved frozen. Most of the autosomes were shown to be involved in lethal trisomies. As a result of the precise identification of affected chromosomes, the exact time of developmental arrest as well as certain phenotypes could be correlated with the various trisomies.

Carrier diagnosis and prenatal diagnosis of Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Becker's muscular dystrophy (BMD) has become possible using some twenty RFLPs detected by more than a dozen Xp21 probes that are either intragenic or flanking the disease locus. Results from familial studies on 88 DMD and BM families stress important considerations concerning a priori and final risks, individuals necessary for the identification of the phase, and the different strategies that can be applied, regardless of whether the study concerns an on-going pregnancy or a carrier-status determination, and whether the patient is at high or low risk. Finally, multiple sources of difficulties in interpreting the results depend on a) the occurrence of new mutations that must be traced; b) the existence of meiotic recombination; c) the necessity, in some instances, of relying upon the sole identification of the paternal X. These considerations emphasize the characteristics and the important limitations of this type of methodology.

A cloned human cDNA for transferrin (TF) was used as hybridization probe in analysing a series of rodent x human somatic cell hybrids for the presence of human TF sequences. The assignment to chromosome 3 was further refined to region 3q21----3qter using hybrids that carried a translocated chromosome 3 and fibroblasts from a patient trisomic for this region. The gene for TF therefore maps to the same region as the gene for transferrin receptor (TFR) thereby defining an iron transport region on 3q2 to which the transferrin-related tumor associated antigen p97 may also belong. It follows that the genes for pseudocholinesterase (CHE1), ceruleoplasmin (CP) and alpha-2HS-glycoprotein (A2HS) which belong to the, as yet unassigned, linkage group of TF, now also map to chromosome 3 in man.

Associations of the three n degrees 18 chromosomes were studied in a trisomy 18 fetus (the chromosomal constitution of which had been identified by amniocentesis). The three classes of associations observed were those observed in other trisomic organisms:trivalent, trivalent presenting an important asynaptic region, and bivalent accompanied by a univalent. In addition, the sequence was established of chromomeres, the number of which varied from 18 to 23 depending on the degree of chromosome contraction. In elongated pachytene oocyte bivalents each G-band of mitotic metaphase chromosomes could be subdivided into several sub-bands.

The enzymatic activities of gamma-glutamyl-transpeptidase and of aminopeptidase M have been determined in amniotic fluids taken in pregnancies with a trisomic conceptus. The low values obtained in these fluids may be the consequence of fetal growth retardation.