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(Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 1995;15:219-227.)
© 1995 American Heart Association, Inc.

Articles

Characterization of a Splice-Site Mutation in the Gene for the LDL Receptor Associated With an Unpredictably Severe Clinical Phenotype in English Patients With Heterozygous FH

X.-M. Sun; D.D. Patel; D. Bhatnagar; B.L. Knight; A.K. Soutar

From the Lipoprotein Team, Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre, Hammersmith Hospital, London, and the Department of Medicine, The Royal Infirmary, Manchester (D.B.), England.

Correspondence to Dr A.K. Soutar, Lipoprotein Team, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, Du Cane Road, London W12 ONN.

Abstract We have identified a substitution of G to A in the first base pair of intron 3 in the LDL receptor gene of an English heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) patient. Reverse transcription, amplification, and nucleotide sequencing of the LDL receptor mRNA from mononuclear blood cells showed both the normal mRNA and one that lacked the nucleotides encoded by exon 3, which codes for repeat 2 of the ligand-binding domain. The same mutant allele was identified in 2/200 unrelated FH patients from the London area and 4/77 from Manchester. Immunoblotting of cultured lymphoblasts from the index patient revealed the normal receptor protein and smaller amounts of a receptor protein with electrophoretic mobility consistent with a deletion of the 41 amino acid residues encoded by exon 3. Normal amounts of a similar protein were observed when the mutant cDNA was expressed in heterologous cells; this protein showed reduced binding affinity for LDL but bound apoprotein E–containing lipoproteins normally. Despite these and other observations that repeat 2 of the binding domain is relatively unimportant for receptor function in vitro, carriers of this allele exhibit a severe clinical phenotype, typical of FH. Thus, the relationship between genotype and phenotype in heterozygous FH is not always predictable.

Key Words: mutant protein • immunoblotting • LDL binding • single-strand conformational polymorphism • in vitro expression

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