Sex-specific recombination predicts parent of origin for recurrent genomic disorders

Genomic disorders are caused by structural rearrangements of the genome that generally occur during meiosis1. Often the rearrangements result in large-scale (> 1 kb) copy number variants (CNV; deletions or duplications [≥] 1 kb)2,3. Recurrent pathogenic CNVs harbor similar breakpoints in multiple unrelated individuals and are primarily formed via non-allelic homologous recombination (NAHR)3,4. Several pathogenic NAHR-mediated recurrent CNV loci demonstrate biases for parental origin of de novo CNVs5-9. However, the mechanism underlying these biases is not well understood. Here we have curated parent of origin data for multiple pathogenic CNV loci and demonstrate a significant association between sex-specific differences in meiotic recombination and parental origin biases at these loci. Our results suggest that parental-origin of CNVs is largely controlled by sex-specific recombination rates and bring into light the need to consider these differences when seeking to determine the factors underlying risk for structural variation.