Two chimaeric transcription units result from an inversion breaking intron 1 of the factor VIII gene and a region reportedly affected by reciprocal translocations in T-cell leukaemia

Analysis of mRNA in two haemophilic monozygotic twins offers novel information on the organisation of expressed sequences distal to the coagulation factor VIII gene, These patients show an inversion that, in contrast to the common inversions responsible for 1/5 of all haemophilia A, affects the first rather than intron 22 of the gene, This displaces the most telomeric of the factor VIII exons (exon 1) by similar to 100 kb towards the telomere, and close to the region of the C6.1A gene, This novel inversion creates two hybrid transcription units: one formed by the promoter and first exon of the factor VIII gene followed by a widely expressed sequence; the other by the promoter and coding region of the C6.1A gene plus most of the factor VIII gene (part of intron 1 and exons 2-26), Investigation of this transcription unit reveals that the C6.1A gene has an unsuspected intron in the region coding for the previously described 3'-untranslated tail of the message, Furthermore, exons located beyond the known C6.1A sequence and present in normal transcripts precede exons 2-26 of the factor VIII gene in the hybrid mRNA of the haemophilic twins, The factor VIII sequences in this hybrid mRNA are not expected to be expressed because they lack the first exon, encoding the prepeptide, and follow a translation stop in the C6.1A gene, Leukaemia-related translocations in the C6.1A region suggest that this region may be somewhat unstable.