Paleogenetic study of ancient DNA suggestive of X-linked acrogigantism
- Albert Beckers1⇑,
- Daniel Fernandes2,3,,
- Frederic Fina4,
- Mario Novak2,
- Angelo Abati5,
- Liliya Rostomyan1,
- Albert Thiry6,
- L’Housine Ouafik4,
- Bertrand Pasture7,
- Ron Pinhasi2 and
- Adrian F Daly1
- 1Department of Endocrinology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège, University of Liège, Domaine Universitaire du Sart-Tilman, Liège, Belgium
- 2School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
- 3Department of Life Sciences, Centro de Investigação em Antropologia e Saúde, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
- 4Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Marseille (AP-HM) Hôpital Nord, Service de Transfert d’Oncologie Biologique, and Laboratoire de Biologie Médicale, and Aix-Marseille Université, Inserm, CRO2 UMR_S 911, Marseille, France
- 5Department of Legal Medicine, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège, University of Liège, Domaine Universitaire du Sart-Tilman, Liège, Belgium
- 6Department of Pathology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège, University of Liège, Domaine Universitaire du Sart-Tilman, Liège, Belgium
- 7Office of the Conservator, Muséum régionale des Sciences naturelles, Mons, Belgium
- Correspondence should be addressed to A Beckers; email: albert.beckers{at}chu.ulg.ac.be
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Figure 1
Panel A shows a photograph of the subject J.K. printed for publicity during his visit to Belgium immediately before his hospitalization in November 1901 at which time he was approximately 259 cm in height. Gigantism and acral enlargement are evident. Panel B shows the subject’s skull in a lateral photograph from 1904 and illustrates marked prognathism and enlargement of the malar bones. Panel C shows an interior view of the subject’s cranium and the markedly enlarged pituitary fossa/sella turcica (open arrow). DNA was obtained by drilling a small core in the petrous part of the temporal bone to reach the cochlea (inset); the process is minor and non-destructive (filled arrow).
- © 2017 Society for Endocrinology
