Cl. Shovlin et al., CHARACTERIZATION OF ENDOGLIN AND IDENTIFICATION OF NOVEL MUTATIONS INHEREDITARY HEMORRHAGIC TELANGIECTASIA, American journal of human genetics, 61(1), 1997, pp. 68-79
To identify mutations that cause hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia
(HHT, or Rendu-Osler-Weber syndrome), clinical evaluations and geneti
c studies were performed on 32 families. Linkage studies in four of ei
ght families indicated an endoglin (ENG) gene mutation. ENG sequences
of affected members of the four linked families and probands from the
24 small families were screened for mutations, by Southern blot analys
es and by cycle sequencing of PCR-amplified DNA. Seven novel mutations
were identified in eight families. Two mutations (a termination codon
in exon 4 and a large genomic deletion extending 3' of intron 8) did
not produce a stable ENG transcript in lymphocytes. Five other mutatio
ns (two donor splice-site mutations and three deletions) produce alter
ed mRNAs that are predicted to encode markedly truncated ENG proteins.
Mutations in other families are predicted to lie in ENG-regulatory re
gions or in one of the additional genes that may cause HHT. These data
suggest that the molecular mechanism by which ENG mutations cause HHT
is haploinsufficiency. Furthermore, because the clinical manifestatio
n of disease in these eight families was similar, we hypothesize that
phenotypic variation of HHT is not related to a particular ENG mutatio
n.