Only three mutations account for almost all defective alleles causing adenine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency in Japanese patients.

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Abstract
We analyzed mutant alleles of adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT) deficiency in Japanese patients. Among 141 defective APRT alleles from 72 different families, 96 (68%), 30 (21%), and 10 (7%) had an ATG to ACG missense mutation at codon 136 (APRT*J allele), TGG to TGA nonsense mutation at codon 98, and duplication of a 4-bp sequence in exon 3, respectively. The disease-causing mutations of only four (3%) of all the alleles among Japanese remain to be elucidated. Thus, a diagnosis can be made for most of the Japanese APRT-deficient patients by identifying only three disease-causing mutations. All of the different alleles with the same mutation had the same haplotype, except for APRT*J alleles, thereby suggesting that alleles with the same mutation in different families were derived from the same ancestral gene. Evidence for a crossover or gene conversion event within the APRT gene was observed in an APRT*J mutant allele. Distribution of mutant alleles encoding APRT deficiency among the Japanese was similar to that seen in cystic fibrosis genes among Caucasians and Tay-Sachs genes among the Ashkenazi Jews.