Full Text Available

Note: Clicking the button above will open the full text document at the original institutional repository in a new window.

Common ABCA4 mutations in South Africans: frequencies, pathogenicity and genotype-phenotype correlations

Stargardt disease (STGD), a juvenile-onset form of macular dystrophy resulting in a severe reduction of central vision, may be inherited in either an autosomal recessive or autosomal dominant manner. To date the only gene found to be involved with the autosomal recessive form is ABCA4. Mutations in...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Nossek, C
Other Authors: Ramesar, Rajkumar
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Division of Human Genetics 2014
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1867614346734993408
access_status_str Open Access
author Nossek, C
author2 Ramesar, Rajkumar
author_browse Nossek, C
Ramesar, Rajkumar
author_facet Ramesar, Rajkumar
Nossek, C
author_sort Nossek, C
collection Thesis
description Stargardt disease (STGD), a juvenile-onset form of macular dystrophy resulting in a severe reduction of central vision, may be inherited in either an autosomal recessive or autosomal dominant manner. To date the only gene found to be involved with the autosomal recessive form is ABCA4. Mutations in this gene are associated not only with STGD, but with other autosomal recessive retinal diseases. Due to the numerous mutations detected in ABCA4 and their associated phenotypic heterogeneity, a genotype-phenotype model has been proposed based on the amount of ABCA4 protein activity. Research in the Division of Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) has suggested possible ABCA4 founder mutations underlying STGD in the South African Caucasian Afrikaner population and has identified seven (C1490Y, R602W, IVS38-10T>C, L2027F, V256V, G863A, and R152X) common mutations. In a cohort of patients affected with an ABCA4-associated retinopathy (AAR) a total of 36% were identified as having various bi-allelic combinations of the seven mutations.In the current study, SNaPshot PCR, allele-specific PCR (AS-PCR) and denaturing high performance liquid chromatography (dHPLC) analysis were used to screen for the seven mutations in a patient cohort and a control cohort. A high detection rate of bi-allelic disease-causing mutations in total of 28/72 patients (i.e. 38.89% were fully characterised) confirmed the designed assay to be a viable screening tool, which could be employed in a diagnostic setting. The detection of 12 heterozygotes in the Caucasian control samples (n = 269; 169 of which were specifically Afrikaner) resulted in an estimated background frequency of 4.46 per 100 individuals. This could be used by counsellors to discuss carrier risks with patients and their family members. Bioinformatic tools (PolyPhen, SIFT, PMUT, PANTHER PSEC, ESEfinder, and the BDGP Splice Site Prediction programme) revealed the predicted pathogenicity of the seven mutations to be as follows (in order of decreasing pathogenicity): C1490Y, R602W, V256V, R152X, G863A, L2027F, and IVS38-10T>C. Statistical analysis (using the Kruskal-Wallis test and the Wilcoxon Rank Sum test) showed no significant12effect of mutation combination on phenotype (i.e. AOO/severity as a measure of clinical outcome).To improve the understanding of the genotype-phenotype correlation a larger cohort of South African STGD patients with the same common mutations in various combinations and the availability of sufficient clinical data, is required. Further investigations into the genotype-phenotype correlation, combined with the information on the pathogenicity of the mutations, could result in increased understanding regarding the impact of each mutation, thus enhancing the clinical utility of identifying ABCA4 mutations.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/3101
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:50:35.433Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2014
publishDateRange 2014
publishDateSort 2014
publisher Division of Human Genetics
publisherStr Division of Human Genetics
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/3101 Common ABCA4 mutations in South Africans: frequencies, pathogenicity and genotype-phenotype correlations Nossek, C Ramesar, Rajkumar Greenberg, Jacquie Medicine Stargardt disease (STGD), a juvenile-onset form of macular dystrophy resulting in a severe reduction of central vision, may be inherited in either an autosomal recessive or autosomal dominant manner. To date the only gene found to be involved with the autosomal recessive form is ABCA4. Mutations in this gene are associated not only with STGD, but with other autosomal recessive retinal diseases. Due to the numerous mutations detected in ABCA4 and their associated phenotypic heterogeneity, a genotype-phenotype model has been proposed based on the amount of ABCA4 protein activity. Research in the Division of Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) has suggested possible ABCA4 founder mutations underlying STGD in the South African Caucasian Afrikaner population and has identified seven (C1490Y, R602W, IVS38-10T>C, L2027F, V256V, G863A, and R152X) common mutations. In a cohort of patients affected with an ABCA4-associated retinopathy (AAR) a total of 36% were identified as having various bi-allelic combinations of the seven mutations.In the current study, SNaPshot PCR, allele-specific PCR (AS-PCR) and denaturing high performance liquid chromatography (dHPLC) analysis were used to screen for the seven mutations in a patient cohort and a control cohort. A high detection rate of bi-allelic disease-causing mutations in total of 28/72 patients (i.e. 38.89% were fully characterised) confirmed the designed assay to be a viable screening tool, which could be employed in a diagnostic setting. The detection of 12 heterozygotes in the Caucasian control samples (n = 269; 169 of which were specifically Afrikaner) resulted in an estimated background frequency of 4.46 per 100 individuals. This could be used by counsellors to discuss carrier risks with patients and their family members. Bioinformatic tools (PolyPhen, SIFT, PMUT, PANTHER PSEC, ESEfinder, and the BDGP Splice Site Prediction programme) revealed the predicted pathogenicity of the seven mutations to be as follows (in order of decreasing pathogenicity): C1490Y, R602W, V256V, R152X, G863A, L2027F, and IVS38-10T>C. Statistical analysis (using the Kruskal-Wallis test and the Wilcoxon Rank Sum test) showed no significant12effect of mutation combination on phenotype (i.e. AOO/severity as a measure of clinical outcome).To improve the understanding of the genotype-phenotype correlation a larger cohort of South African STGD patients with the same common mutations in various combinations and the availability of sufficient clinical data, is required. Further investigations into the genotype-phenotype correlation, combined with the information on the pathogenicity of the mutations, could result in increased understanding regarding the impact of each mutation, thus enhancing the clinical utility of identifying ABCA4 mutations. 2014-07-28T14:52:35Z 2014-07-28T14:52:35Z 2010 Master Thesis Masters MSc(Med) http://hdl.handle.net/11427/3101 eng application/pdf Division of Human Genetics Faculty of Health Sciences University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Medicine
Nossek, C
Common ABCA4 mutations in South Africans: frequencies, pathogenicity and genotype-phenotype correlations
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Common ABCA4 mutations in South Africans: frequencies, pathogenicity and genotype-phenotype correlations
title_full Common ABCA4 mutations in South Africans: frequencies, pathogenicity and genotype-phenotype correlations
title_fullStr Common ABCA4 mutations in South Africans: frequencies, pathogenicity and genotype-phenotype correlations
title_full_unstemmed Common ABCA4 mutations in South Africans: frequencies, pathogenicity and genotype-phenotype correlations
title_short Common ABCA4 mutations in South Africans: frequencies, pathogenicity and genotype-phenotype correlations
title_sort common abca4 mutations in south africans frequencies pathogenicity and genotype phenotype correlations
topic Medicine
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/3101
work_keys_str_mv AT nossekc commonabca4mutationsinsouthafricansfrequenciespathogenicityandgenotypephenotypecorrelations