ASSESSMENT OF GENETIC POLYMORPHISMS IN DNA FROM FORMALIN-FIXED NEUROLOGICAL TISSUES

The ability to analyze the genotype of deceased affected members of pe digrees segregating inherited neurological diseases considerably augme nts the informativeness of such pedigrees. This information has direct application in attempts to isolate disease genes by positional clonin g strategies, and for genetic counselling. We show that the genotype a t polymorphic simple sequence repeat loci can be determined from genom ic DNA isolated from 10 micron thick paraffin embedded, formalin fixed neurological tissues. The critical constraint on this method is the s ize of the template target bearing the simple sequence repeat, which s hould ideally be less than 165 base pairs.