The purpose of this study is to understand the genetic causes of congenital diaphragmatic disorders (CDD), namely congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), eventration and hiatal hernia.
Specifically, the investigators plan to:
- Ascertain informative families and sporadic cases with congenital diaphragmatic disorders and obtain appropriate phenotypic data and genetic material (peripheral blood and/or diaphragm tissue sample).
- Localize the gene(s) for CDD to specific chromosomal segments using linkage analysis, and determine the role of somatic mutations in CDD.
- Isolate and characterize genes involved in the pathogenesis of CDD.
- Develop molecular markers that will facilitate accurate diagnosis (including prenatal diagnosis) and permit correlation of phenotypic variation with specific mutations.
- Compare RNA-sequencing from tissue samples of children without CDH to those children with CDH.