Novel and Recurrent PNPLA1 Mutations in Spanish Patients with Autosomal Recessive Congenital Ichthyosis; Evidence of a Founder Effect

Autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis (ARCI) is a group of rare non-syndrome diseases that affect cornification. PNPLA1 is one of the 12 related genes identified so far. Mutation screening of this gene has resulted in the identification of 13 individuals, from 10 families, who carried 7 different PNPLA1 mutations. These mutations included 2 missense, 2 frame­shift and 3 nonsense, 3 of them being novel. One of the identified variants, c.417_418delinsTC, was highly prevalent, as it was found in 6 out of 10 (60%) of our ARCI families with PNPLA1 mutations. Clinical manifestations varied significantly among patients, but altered sweating; erythema, palmar hyperlinearity and small whitish scales in flexor-extensor and facial areas were common symptoms. Haplotype analyses of c.417_418delinsTC carriers confirmed the existence of a common ancestor. This study expands the spectrum of the PNPLA1 disease, which causes variants and demonstrates that the c.417_418delinsTC mutation has founder effects in the Spanish population.This work was partially supported by Ramón Areces Foundation project (Rare Diseases 2013-056); by Spanish Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) (INT15/00070, INT16/00154, INT17/00133) and by Xunta de Galicia (IN607B). UE was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from Xunta de GaliciaS