We have screened the families of the Collaborative Linkage Study of Autism for several markers spanning a candidate region covering approximately 2 Mb and including the Angelman syndrome gene (UBE3A) and a cluster of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA(A)) receptor subunit genes (GABRB3, GABRA5, and GABRG3).
The GABRB3/GABRA5 region appears, therefore, to be enriched for highly informative (CA)n. This set of closely spaced, short tandem repeat polymorphisms will be useful in the molecular analyses of Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes and in high-resolution studies of genetic recombination within this region.