Disorders of sex development (DSD) constitutes a group of congenital conditions that affect urogenital differentiation and are associated with chromosomal, gonadal and phenotypic sex abnormalities. To Show more
Disorders of sex development (DSD) constitutes a group of congenital conditions that affect urogenital differentiation and are associated with chromosomal, gonadal and phenotypic sex abnormalities. To evaluate the clinical and genetic features of childhood DSD cases. DSD patients followed up between the years of 2002-2018 were evaluated in terms of their complaints, demographic, clinical features and genetic diagnoses. Out of 289 patients, 143(49.5%) were classified as 46XY DSD, 62(21.5%) as 46XX DSD and 84(29%) as sex chromosomal DSD. Genetic diagnosis was achieved in 150 patients (51.9%). The distribution of the molecular diagnosis of the 46XY DSD patients were; 12 (26.6%) SRD5A2, 10 (22.2%) AR, 7 (15.5%) HSD17B3, 3 (6.6%) WT-1, 2 (4.4%) AMHR2, 2 (4.4%) AMH, 2 (4.4%) LHCGR, 2 (4.4%) HSD3B2, 1 (2.2%) NR5A1, 1 (2.2%) CYP17A1 and 1 (2.2%) SRY mutation. Fifty (80.6%) of the 46XX DSD patients received a diagnosis with clinical and laboratory findings. Twenty-four (38.7%) of them were 21-hydroxylase deficiency, 9(14.5%) Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome, 4 (6.5%) 11-β hydroxylase deficiency, 3 (4.8%) gonadal dysgenesis and 2 (3.2%) aromatase deficiency. In 46XX group pathogenic mutations were detected in 21(33.8%) of the patients. Eighty-four (29%) patients were diagnosed as sex chromosomal disorder. Of these 66 (78.5%) were Turner Syndrome, 6 (7.2%) Klinefelter Syndrome and 10 (11.9%) mix gonadal dysgenesis. Gender re-assignment was decided in 11 patients. Malignant and pre-invasive lesions was diagnosed in 8 (2.7%) patients. Many of DSD's are clinically similar and etiology of numerous of them still cannot be established. A multi-disciplinary approach and new rapid genetic diagnostic methods are needed in the process from diagnosis to gender assignment and follow-up. Show less
Genome editing (GE) tools and RNA interference technology enable the modulation of gene expression in cancer research. While GE mediated by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (C Show more
Genome editing (GE) tools and RNA interference technology enable the modulation of gene expression in cancer research. While GE mediated by clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 or transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALEN) activity can be used to induce gene knockouts, shRNA interacts with the targeted transcript, resulting in gene knockdown. Here, we compare three different methods for Show less