A cascade of genes related to Waardenburg syndrome.

On some occasions, mutations of a gene cause different syndromes that may have similar phenotypes. For example, mutations of the MITF gene cause Waardenburg syndrome type 2 (Tassabehji et al, 1994; Nobukuni et al, 1996) as well as Tietz syndrome (Smith et al, 1997). On other occasions, mutations of different genes cause an identical syndrome. Molecular analyses of these genes may provide a good opportunity to not only understand such syndromes themselves but also the biologic aspects of cells relevant to these syndromes. By analyzing the genes for Waardenburg syndrome, we showed that PAX3, the gene responsible for Waardenburg syndrome type 1, regulates MITF, the gene responsible for Waardenburg syndrome type 2. Such epistatic relationships have been shown between other genes related to Waardenburg syndrome, and likely to construct a cascade. This paper proposes such a cascade, one that involves genes for PAX3, MITF, human MyoD, MYF5, c-MET, c-KIT, tyrosinase, TRP-1, human QNR-71, SOX10, EDNRB, and EDN3.