Evidence for a novel gene for familial febrile convulsions, FEB2, linked to chromosome 19p in an extended family from the Midwest

Febrile convulsions are a common form of childhood seizure. It is estimatedthat between 2 and 5% of children will have a febrile convulsion before theage of 5. It has long been recognized that there is a significant geneticcomponent for susceptibility to this type of seizure. Wallace, Berkovic andco-workers recently reported linkage of a putative autosomal dominantfebrile convulsion gene to chromosome 8q13-21. We report here anotherautosomal dominant febrile convulsion locus on chromosome 19p. Linkageanalysis in this large multi- generational family gave a maximum pairwiselod score of 4.52 with marker Mfd120 at locus D19S177. Linkage to thechromosome 8 locus was excluded in this family. Haplotype analysis usingboth affected and unaffected family members indicates that this febrileconvulsion gene, which we call FEB2 , can be localized to an 11.7 cM, 1-2Mb section of chromosome 19p13.3, between loci D19S591 and D19S395.