title: Pathogenic mutations and rare variants of the APC gene identified in 75 Belgian patients with familial adenomatous polyposis by fluorescent enzymatic mutation detection (EMD).
abstract: Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) is a dominant inherited colorectal cancer syndrome which is caused by germline mutations in the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) gene. Enzymatic mutation detection (EMD) has potential advantages over the standard protein truncation test (PTT) that is currently used in screening the APC gene for mutations. First we wanted to validate the EMD technique in comparison to PTT. Secondly, we wanted to develop an efficient working protocol for EMD screening of APC. Seventy-five unrelated patients were screened for mutations. All mutations that had previously been detected by PTT were also identified by EMD; the sizes of the cleavage fragments were as expected according to the position of the mutations within the amplicons. A new screening strategy based on EMD allows the analysis of the APC gene in 31 overlapping PCR fragments. In total, EMD efficiently detected the 26 truncating mutations in this series. In addition, two rare variants were also detected: the first is the typical Ashkenazi missense mutation I1307K while the second variant, E1317Q, has been identifed in Belgian patients and controls, and should no longer be considered as a pathogenic mutation, but rather classified as a polymorphism.
authors.affiliation: Center for Human Genetics, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Geneviève
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Michils
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tejpar
authors.forename: Jean-Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Fryns
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Legius
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Van Cutsem
authors.forename: Jean-Jacques
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Cassiman
authors.forename: Gert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Matthijs
mesh_terms: D011125:Adenomatous Polyposis Coli / Q000235:genetics*; D019943:Amino Acid Substitution; D001530:Belgium; D017491:Genes, APC; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening; D009154:Mutation; D010641:Phenotype; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017384:Sequence Deletion