Acta Dermato-Venereologica 99-7CompleteContent | Page 25
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SHORT COMMUNICATION
Whole Exome Sequencing Identified a Novel Mutation of the RHBDF2 Gene in a Chinese Family of
Tylosis with Esophageal Cancer
Le QU 1 , Sha SHA 2 , Qian-Lei ZOU 1 , Xing-Hua GAO 1 , Ting XIAO 1 , Hong-Duo CHEN 1 * and Chundi HE 1 *
Department of Dermatology, and 2 Department of Geriatrics, The First Hospital of China Medical University, 155 North Nanjing Street
Shenyang 110001, China. *E-mails: [email protected]; [email protected]
1
Accepted Apr 2, 2019; E-published Apr 2, 2019
Tylosis with esophageal cancer (TOC) is an extremely
rare autosomal dominant disorder characterized by early-
onset palmar and plantar hyperkeratosis, oral leukoplakia,
and a high risk of esophageal cancer (1, 2). The mutation
of inactive rhomboid protease RHBDF2 gene has been
reported as the underlying cause of TOC (3). Up till now,
there are only 3 studies on RHBDF2 gene mutations in
TOC reported (3–5). Here for the first time, we identified
a novel c.589C>A mutation of RHBDF2 gene from a
Chinese family with TOC by whole exome sequencing.
We found that the mutation in the RHBDF2 gene altered
RHBDF2 protein localization in tylotic skin. We also
found that both sporadic and tylotic esophageal cancer
types present different expression of the RHBDF2 com-
pared to the normal controls.
Reads that aligned to exon regions were collected for mutation
identification and subsequent analysis. SAMtools mpileup and
BCFtools were used to do variant calling and identify SNP and
indels. The data that mapped to the targeted region chr17q25 had a
mean depth of 144.01-fold, and 99.95% of the targeted bases were
covered. Finally, 4 variants in 3 genes, including RHBDF2 gene:
c.502C>A and c.589C>A; ITGB4 gene: c.2207G>T; and CDK3
gene: c.803A>G, with the greatest likelihood of relevance were
checked by Sanger sequencing. Only the heterozygous mutation
c.589C>A in exon 6 of the RHBDF2 gene co-segregated with the
phenotype and was observed neither in unaffected family members
nor in 100 unrelated Chinese controls (Fig. 1g).
Using DNAMAN software (Lynnon BioSoft, Canada), we con-
firmed that mutation c.589C>A lead to the amino acid alteration
https://www.medicaljournals.se/acta/content/abstract/10.2340/00015555-3189
1
CASE REPORT
The Chinese family of interest has 65 indi-
viduals spanning 4 generations, of which 12
were affected (Fig. 1a). The proband (III18)
is a 51-year-old man who has been affected
by palmar (Fig. 1b) and plantar (Fig. 1c, d)
hyperkeratosis since he was 9 years. He was
diagnosed with oral leukoplakia (Fig. 1e) and
esophageal cancer (Fig. f) at the age of 48.
Other 7 family members (I1, II4, II5, III7,
III9, III11 and III18) affected by the palmar
and plantar hyperkeratosis have also been di-
agnosed with esophageal cancer. Four family
members (III20, IV7, IV8 and IV16) were
affected by the palmar and plantar hyperke-
ratosis, without esophageal cancer diagnosis
so far. For complete details see Appendix S1 1 .
Written informed consent was obtained
from all subjects and the Institutional Review
Board and the Ethics Committee of The First
Hospital of China Medical University provi-
ded approval for this study. Peripheral blood
samples were collected from the TOC (tylosis
with esophageal cancer) family members and
100 unrelated healthy individuals of Chinese
origin as controls. Three affected (III11, III18
and IV16) and one unaffected individuals
(III5) were subjected to the whole exome
sequencing. Genomic DNAs were isolated
and randomly fragmented. Whole exome
sequencing was performed on all samples
using Agilent SureSelect All Exon V6 kit and
paired-end 150 bp sequencing on the Illumina
NovaSeq platform. Sequencing reads were
aligned to the GRCh37 reference genome
using Burrows Wheeler Aligner (BWA).
Fig. 1. (a) Family pedigree. (b) Clinical images of the proband’s palmar, (c) plantar and (e)
oral leukokeratosis. (d) Skin biopsy from the proband’s plantar, and (f) mucosa biopsy from the
proband’s esophageal cancer tissue. Scale bars represent 100 μm. (g) c.589C>A mutation in
the exon 6 of RHBDF2 gene from normal controls and affected members of the family.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license. www.medicaljournals.se/acta
Journal Compilation © 2019 Acta Dermato-Venereologica.
doi: 10.2340/00015555-3189
Acta Derm Venereol 2019; 99: 699–700