Postmortem findings in the Coffin-Lowry Syndrome.

The Coffin-Lowry Syndrome (CLS) is a congenital disorder that can be recognized by retarded growth and development, the characteristic appearance of the face and hands, and often by the typical deformities of the back and chest; there are many other anomalies. The history of the syndrome is reviewed, noting the x-linked semidominant pattern of inheritance, and two autopsies are presented and compared with the three autopsy reports that have been published previously. The five young patients died at ages between 18 to 28 years of advancing pneumonia, aspiration of food into the trachea, or postoperative complications. There were lesions or abnormalities in the heart, brain, lungs, liver, skeleton, kidneys, intestines, and other organs. Molecular geneticists have located the CLS gene or Rsk-2 gene at Xp22.2 and demonstrated that it works by influencing the activation of other genes. The "monopolygenic" pattern may help to explain the large number of seemingly unrelated abnormalities that make up this syndrome.