RESTRICTION MAP OF A YAC AND COSMID CONTIG ENCOMPASSING THE OCULOPHARYNGEAL MUSCULAR-DYSTROPHY CANDIDATE REGION ON CHROMOSOME 14Q11.2-Q13

As part of our effort to clone positionally the oculopharyngeal muscul ar dystrophy (OPMD) gene, we constructed a YAC contig, a cosmid contig , and an EcoRI restriction map of the OPMD candidate region. The YAC c ontig spans more than 2 Mb and encompasses the loci D14S283 and D14S99 0 and the cardiac alpha and beta myosin heavy chain genes (MYH6 and MY H7). A 700-kb cosmid contig containing the D14S990 and the myosin gene s and a long-range restriction map covering the region between D14S990 and the MYH6 and MYH7 gene cluster were established. A detailed EcoRI restriction map of the cosmid contig was determined, and five putativ e CpG islands were identified. Based on these data, the four loci were mapped within an approximately 600-kb region with the following centr omere to telomere order: D14S283, D14S990, MYH6, and MYH7. The YAC and cosmid contigs will facilitate the identification of genes lying with in the OPMD candidate interval. (C) 1998 Academic Press.