Brown oculocutaneous albinism is allelic to tyrosinase-positive oculocutaneous albinism in southern African Negroids

Brown oculocutaneous albinism (BOCA) is an autosomal recessive disorder involving a decrease in pigment of the skin, hair and eyes as well as decreased visual acuity. Evidence from two families who have co-existent BOCA and tyrosinase-positive oculocutaneous albinism (ty-pos OCA), suggests that the two conditions are allelic. Ty-pos OCA has been mapped to chromosome 15q11-q12 and the gene has been confirmed to be the human homologue (P) of the mouse pink-eyed dilute gene (p). Seven markers known to be linked to the P gene, D15S11, D15S10, MS14, GABA3, GABA5, IR10 and pCMW-1, were used to construct haplotypes in 5 families with BOCA. The haplotype data was subjected to linkage analysis and a maximum lod score of 2.85 ({theta} 0.0) was obtained. It has been reported previously that BOCA, in an Afro-American, was due to the lack of tyrosinase-protein 1 (Trp-1) in melanocytes. Trp-1 has been excluded as the disease-causing locus in the southern African families by linkage analysis with D9S43. A lod score of -2.02 was obtained at {theta} = 0.02.