Early onset Paget's disease of bone caused by a novel mutation (78dup27) of the TNFRSF11A gene in a Chinese family.
OBJECTIVE
A previous study showed that individuals of Japanese descent affected by early onset familial Paget's disease of bone (PDB) carried a 27-bp duplication at position 75 (75dup27) in the TNFRSF11A gene encoding RANK. Here we report the identification of a novel mutation (78dup27) in exon 1 of TNFRSF11A in a Chinese family with early onset PDB.


METHODS
We conducted clinical and genetic studies in a non-consanguineous Chinese family with early onset PDB. The entire coding region of TNFRSF11A was amplified and directly sequenced directly.


RESULTS
A novel 27-bp duplication in exon 1 (78dup27) in TNFRSF11A was found in four affected individuals and one asymptomatic individual. Although this duplication was the same length as the previously identified mutation (27 bp, from bases 78 to 104), in our patients the nine duplicated amino acids in the RANK signal peptide were LLLLCALLA. The phenotypes of affected individuals in this family overlapped with both early onset PDB and classic PDB, but several distinguishing features were found in our patients. The key difference between our familial PDB and the Japanese early onset PDB was the age of onset, which in most of our patients was during their late 20s (except for the propositus' niece). Another notable difference was that the propositus' son (24 years old), who carried the 78dup27 mutation, had no clinical symptoms or bone abnormalities, except for increased serum ALP, OC and CTX.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings may provide a better understanding of the clinical features of early onset PDB and support the notion of a hot spot for mutations in exon 1 of the TNFRSF11A gene.
Ke
Yao-hua
YH
The Department of Osteoporosis, Metabolic Bone Disease and Genetic Research Unit, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai 200233, China.
Yue
Hua
H
He
Jin-wei
JW
Liu
Yu-juan
YJ
Zhang
Zhen-lin
ZL
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002681:China; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D005260:Female; D020440:Gene Duplication; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010001:Osteitis Deformans / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D010375:Pedigree; D053246:Receptor Activator of Nuclear Factor-kappa B / Q000235:genetics*; D055815:Young Adult
D053246:Receptor Activator of Nuclear Factor-kappa B; C505686:TNFRSF11A protein, human