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Title: A nonsense mutation in the LDL receptor gene leads to familial hypercholesterolemia in the Druze sect

Journal Article · · American Journal of Human Genetics; (United States)
OSTI ID:7014302
; ; ;  [1];  [2]; ;  [3]
  1. Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem (Israel)
  2. Rambam Medical Center and Faculty of Medicine, Haifa (Israel)
  3. University of Cape Town Medical School, (South Africa)

Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an autosomal dominant disease caused by mutations in the LDL receptor gene. Here the authors characterize and LDL receptor mutation that is associated with a distinct haplotype and causes FH in the Druze, a small Middle Eastern Islamic sect with a high degree of inbreeding. The mutation was found in FH families from two distinct Druze villages from the Golan Heights (northern Israel). It was not found either in another Druze FH family residing in a different geographical area nor in eight Arab and four Jewish FH heterozygote index cases whose hypercholesterolemia cosegregates with an identical LDL receptor gene haplotype. The mutation, a single-base substitution, results in a termination codon in exon 4 of the LDL receptor gene that encodes for the fourth repeat of the binding domain of the mature receptor. It can be diagnosed by allele-specific oligonucleotide hybridization of PCR-amplified DNA from FH patients.

OSTI ID:
7014302
Journal Information:
American Journal of Human Genetics; (United States), Vol. 50:2; ISSN 0002-9297
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English