Atypical epidermolysis bullosa simplex with a missense keratin 14 mutation p.Arg125Cys.

Epidermolysis bullosa (EB) is a group of hereditary autosomal dominant bullous diseases. EB is divided into four major phenotypes: intraepidermal EB (or EB simplex), junctional EB, dermolytic EB and mixed EB (Kindler syndrome). EB simplex is further divided into three subtypes: localized EB simplex, Dowling-Meara EB simplex and other generalized EB simplex. We report a 28-year-old man with EB simplex with a missense keratin 14 mutation p.Arg125Cys associated with clumping of keratin filaments and acantholysis in mainly the spinous cells and basal cells. Immunohistochemistry revealed that the broader expression of keratin 5 and 14 was observed in the epidermis, while the expression of keratin 1/10 was quite normal. Dysregulated expression of keratin 5/14 may hinder some functions or roles of keratin 1/10, namely filament assembly of keratin 1/10 in spinous cell integrity, although the expression of keratin 1/10 was not affected and this has not been demonstrated before.

Exon 87 skipping of the COL7A1 gene in dominant dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa.

Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB) is a rare, inherited, blistering disorder resulting from mutations in the COL7A1 gene, which encodes the anchoring fibrils, type VII collagen. We herein describe a further Japanese girl diagnosed with dominant DEB (DDEB). She had blisters sporadically and erosions healed with mild scarring and milia on the knees and pretibial regions. Severe pruritus was present at this time. Direct nucleotide sequencing of genomic DNA disclosed a heterozygous same splice-site mutation c.6900G>A in the COL7A1, which causes in-frame exon 87 skipping. So far, five different COL7A1 mutations leading to exon 87 skipping have been identified in rare forms of DEB: four DDEB pruriginosa and one pretibial DDEB. Therefore, a recent study suggested that exon 87 skipping in COL7A1 was related to the phenotype of DDEB pruriginosa. When she was 18 years old, however, the blister formation and pruritus markedly decreased. Therefore, her clinical symptoms were consistent to very mild DDEB but not to DDEB pruriginosa. Taken together, in-frame exon 87 skipping through c.6900G>A mutation may account for the mild skin features, rather than DDEB pruriginosa, in the present case.

Molecular and clinical characterization in Japanese and Korean patients with Hailey-Hailey disease: six new mutations in the ATP2C1 gene.

BACKGROUND: The autosomal dominant disorder Hailey-Hailey disease (HHD) results from mutations in the ATP2C1 gene, which encodes the human secretory pathway Ca2+/Mn2+ -ATPase protein 1. To date, over 90 pathological mutations scattered throughout ATP2C1 have been described with no indication of mutational hotspots or clustering of mutations. No paradigm for genotype-phenotype correlation has emerged. OBJECTIVES: To determine the pathogenic ATP2C1 abnormality in additional patients with HHD in order to provide further contributions to the understanding of the molecular basis of this disorder and to add the data to the known mutation database. METHODS: In this study, we investigated eight unrelated Japanese and Korean patients with HHD. We performed direct nucleotide sequencing of the ATP2C1 gene in all patients and RT-PCR analysis, using RNA extracted from a skin biopsy, in a patient with the mildest clinical features. RESULTS: We identified seven different heterozygous mutations in seven of the eight investigated patients, including three new single nucleotide deletion/duplication mutations: c.520delC; c.681dupA; c.956delC, three new donor splice site mutations: c.360+1G>C; c.899+1G>T; c.1570+2T>C, as well as a previously described nonsense mutation: p.Arg153X. RT-PCR analysis in the mildest affected patient with a heterozygous c.360+1G>C mutation, demonstrated expression of a short in-frame mutant transcript with exon 5 skipping, which may account for the mild phenotype. CONCLUSIONS: The results expand the known mutation spectrum in HHD and show the importance of RNA analysis for understanding the genotype-phenotype correlations more precisely.