Loss of LIS-1 immunoreactivity was observed in brains with MDS, but not in brains with other malformations, such as isolated lissencephaly, holoprosencephaly, Fukuyama-type congenital muscular dystrophy, and Zellweger syndrome.
Our analyses also suggest that additional genes distal to LIS1 may be responsible for the facial dysmorphology and other abnormalities seen in MDS but not in ILS patients, supporting our original concept MDS as a contiguous gene deletion syndrome.
However, 14-3-3 epsilon lies telomeric to LIS1 and outside the Miller-Dieker syndrome chromosome region but in a region frequently deleted in several types of cancer, and is a reasonable candidate tumor suppressor gene.
Sequence analysis revealed a striking identity (99%) of the subunit with a protein encoded by the causative gene (LIS-1) for Miller-Dieker lissencephaly, a human brain malformation manifested by a smooth cerebral surface and abnormal neuronal migration.