Nature Genetics

Analysis of the literature of the effects of consanguinity on mortality puts a figure on the price of inbreeding.

It remains unclear just how big the latest player in the tumour-suppressor league will turn out to be. But p!6 is not about to go away.

A complete physical map of the region encompassing the locus for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer should assist the long-awaited cloning of this important gene.

New strategies for automated genotyping and linkage analysis will bring greater power to the study of complex hereditary disorders.

The search for genetic factors that may predispose people to various allergies takes a promising turn with the publication of some incriminating evidence against the IgE receptor.

The most extensive comparison so far of contiguous genomic DNA in humans and mice reveals a surprising degree of conservation in intergenic sequences.

A linkage map for of the cattle genome points to mechanisms of the reassortment of mammalian genes while a new technique raises questions about the structure of gene-starts in chromatin.

Apart from the usual crop of gene assignments (for hereditary haemorrhagic telanglectasia, for example) this month's issue carries further the genetics of expanding repeating elements.

The first issue of Nature Genetics this year includes the first search for alleles associated with longevity outside the human HLA complex and the seventh neurodegenerative disease associated with a repetitive DNA triplet sequence.

Familial startle disease is among the oddest of disorders. The demonstration of a mutation in the inhibitory glycine receptor points towards a cause of this and similar perturbations.

In situ expression studies show that the selective pathology of Huntington's disease is not explained by a simple pattern of gene expression in the brain.

Characterization of genetic defects involving myelin continues with the identification of the gene for Canavan's disease, a condition that results in the destruction of the brain's white matter.

The genetics of inherited migraines is proving more tractable than might have been expected given the clinical heterogeneity of the malady.

Thousands of human genes are being characterized by analysing complementary DNA sequences. But the job of making full use of this wealth of information is just beginning.

A direct search for expanding trinucleotide repeat sequences has paid off with the identification of the latest disorder caused by this mechanism — spinocerebellar ataxia type 1.

Genetic analysis of domestic animals demonstrates the feasibility of marker-assisted selection of economically important traits and may foreshadow good things to come (other than better bacon) for human geneticists.

Work published over the past month provides insight into the mechanism of genomic imprinting in mice and the possible phenotypic consequences of imprinting in humans.

The association between insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and HLA is fearsomely complicated. But powerful techniques are being brought to bear on the problem.