Objective: To investigate the clinical phenotype, genetic etiology, and diagnosis of 11q deletion (11q-) syndrome.
Methods: In this study, pregnant women were selected from prenatal testing in Longgang Maternal and Child Health Hospital of Shenzhen. After screening for prenatal serological analysis, noninvasive prenatal genetic testing screening (NIPS), chromosome karyotype analysis, and chromosome microarray analysis (CMA), 4 pregnant women diagnosed with 11q- syndrome were selected for retrospective analysis.
Result: Pregnant women of advanced age and with a history of adverse pregnancy need to have regular monitoring of fetal development. When high-risk results are obtained in NIPS and serological analysis during prenatal check-ups, early interventional prenatal diagnosis and genetic counseling should be carried out under the guidance of clinicians. The results of SNP array analysis suggest a large fragment deletion in the long arm of chromosome 11, including the telomeric region. The results of chromosome karyotype analysis supplement and indicate the structural variation of balanced translocation in cases 1 and 4 and verify the pathogenic variation results of SNP array analysis. Ultrasound monitoring reveals that the fetus has cardiac abnormalities such as ventricular septal defect and single arterial trunk. The incomplete penetrance of congenital heart malformations may be caused by multigene regulation, epigenetics, and environmental factors that can suppress the expression of congenital heart malformations in fetuses with 11q- syndrome.
Conclusion: The differences and severity of fetal phenotypes may depend on the types and quantities of functional genes contained in fragments of different sizes. Fetuses with 11q- syndrome have incomplete penetrance and variable expressivity. The combined use of SNP array analysis and chromosome karyotype analysis can clarify the variation source of fetuses with 11q- syndrome. Especially when one of the parents has a chromosomal reciprocal translocation, chromosome karyotype analysis can further clarify its genetic etiology. This is conducive to providing a theoretical basis for the genotype-phenotype correlation of 11q- syndrome.