Babies born with BWS are unusually large, have differences in tongue and ear formation and are at an increased risk for childhood tumors. This selective imprinting may explain why changes to the gene have one effect in the heart and another elsewhere in the body, he says.
Imprinting errors can lead to unchecked growth and possibly to cancer.
Normally, though, imprinting helps the body differently use the maternal and paternal copies of genes. Feinberg and others have previously shown that three genes related to BWS are located in a spot on chromosome 11, that these genes are imprinted, and that imprinting of these genes is disrupted in BWS patients. It's possible, Feinberg notes, that all four genes are imprinted in some coordinated fashion. Other authors were Ren-Ju Hu and Laura Johnson. This research was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.