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RED CELLS
From the Zentrallabor, Stadtspital Triemli,
Zürich, Switzerland; Centre Français des
Porphyries, INSERM U409, Faculté X. Bichat, Hôpital Louis
Mourier, Colombes, France; Department of Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology, College of Medicine, Institute for Biomolecular
Science, and H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute,
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.
Ferrochelatase (FECH; EC 4.99.1.1) catalyzes the terminal step of
the heme biosynthetic pathway. Defects in the human FECH gene may lead to erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP), a rare inherited disorder characterized by diminished FECH activity with protoporphyrin overproduction and subsequent skin photosensitivity and in rare cases
liver failure. Inheritance of EPP appeared to be autosomal dominant
with possible modulation by low expression of the wild-type FECH
allele. Animal FECHs have been demonstrated to be [2Fe-2S] cluster-containing proteins. Although enzymatic activity and stability of the protein appear to be dependent on the presence of the [2Fe-2S] cluster, the physiologic role of the iron-sulfur center remains to be
unequivocally established. Three of the 4 [2Fe-2S]
cluster-coordinating cysteines (ie, C403, C406, and C411 in
the human enzyme) are located within the C-terminal domain. In this
study 5 new mutations are identified in patients with EPP. Three of the
point mutations, in 3 patients, resulted in FECH variants with 2 of the
[2Fe-2S] cluster cysteines substituted with tyrosine, serine, and
glycine (ie, C406Y, C406S, and C411G) and with undetectable
enzymatic activity. Further, one of the patients exhibited a triple
point mutation (T1224 Ferrochelatase (FECH; protoheme ferrolyase, EC
4.99.1.1) catalyzes the insertion of ferrous iron into protoporphyrin
IX macrocycle, the terminal step in the heme biosynthetic
pathway.1,2 Decreased FECH activity is a hallmark of
patients with erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP; MIM 177,000). EPP is
an inherited disorder of heme biosynthesis caused by a partial
deficiency of FECH leading to an accumulation of free protoporphyrin,
predominantly in erythrocytes.3,4 Clinically, the disorder
is manifested starting in childhood, mainly as painful photosensitivity
due to accumulation of free protoporphyrin in the skin.4,5
However, in fewer than 5% of the patients accumulation of
protoporphyrin in the liver may lead to liver injury and even terminal
liver failure.4,5
Eukaryotic mature FECH is associated with the inner mitochondrial
membrane, with the active site facing the mitochondrial matrix.1,6 FECHs isolated from human,7
mouse,8 chicken,9 frog,9 and
Drosophila melanogaster10 have been reported to be metalloenzymes, with a [2Fe-2S] cluster as the cofactor. This is
in striking contrast to bacteria, yeast, and plant FECHs, which are
devoid of iron-sulfur centers.1,2 Although a direct
catalytic role for the [2Fe-2S] cluster apparently can be ruled
out,1,7,8,11,12 the ultimate physiologic role of the metal
center remains to be established.11,12 However, despite
the lack of a direct catalytic involvement for the [2Fe-2S] cluster,
mammalian FECH activity does appear to be dependent on the presence of
the [2Fe-2S] cluster,11 suggesting that the metal center
may play a structural role in keeping the enzyme in the correct and
stable conformation.
The ligands of the [2Fe-2S] cluster are 4 cysteines,10,13 with 3 of the residues being present in
the C-terminal domain.10,13 In the human enzyme, the
cysteines are C146, C403, C406, and C411.10,13 In
contrast, in bacteria, yeast, and plant FECHs, the 3 terminal cysteines
coordinating the [2Fe-2S] cluster are either substituted with other
residues or the 30 to 50 amino acid C-terminal domain is
absent.12,13 The 3-dimensional structure of Bacillus
subtilis FECH, determined to 1.9-Å resolution, revealed that the
protein contains 2 similar domains, each with a 4-stranded parallel The human FECH gene encompasses 11 exons and spans
approximately 45 kb,15,16 and it has been assigned to
chromosome 18q21.316-18 (GenBank No. D00726).
Heterogeneous molecular defects in the FECH gene have been
described to be associated with EPP.4,5,19 Albeit the mode
of EPP inheritance has been considered to be mainly autosomal dominant
with variable clinical expression,5 2 cases of autosomal
recessive inheritance have been reported.20,21 In the
dominant type of EPP, the inheritance does not strictly follow the
mendelian rules.19 As recently demonstrated by Gouya and
colleagues, the clinical expression of EPP results from coinheritance of a mutated FECH gene and a wild-type "low expressed"
allele.19 This conclusion supported the hypothesis of a
"triallelic system," proposed by Went and Klasen,22
that an additional factor or a "third allele" was required for the
clinical manifestation of EPP. In this study, 5 new FECH
gene mutations associated with EPP are identified. Significantly, 3 of
the mutated codons correspond to 2 of the [2Fe-2S] cluster ligands.
Study subjects
In vitro amplification of genomic DNA
Genotyping using 2 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) Two SNPs, 251 A/G in the 5' promoter region and IVS1-23 C/T
close to the branching point of intron 1, were studied as described previously.18,23
Construction and synthesis of normal and mutated FECHs in Escherichia coli Construction and expression of normal and mutated FECH complementary DNAs (cDNAs) have been described previously.5 Briefly, the mutations corresponding to those observed in the patients with EPP were introduced in the expression plasmid containing the human wild-type FECH (pGEX-FECH5,24) using the method provided with the transformer site-directed mutagenesis kit (Clontech Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA). The sequences of the primers used in the mutagenesis of the 6 FECH mutants are listed in Table 1. The introduced mutations were verified by DNA sequencing. E coli DH5 cells
harboring either the FECH wild-type expression plasmid or any of the
FECH variants were grown in Luria-Bertani medium and induction of
recombinant protein production was performed as described
previously.5 FECH activity in bacterial lysates was
measured fluorometrically by monitoring zinc-mesoporphyrin formation,
according to the method described by Li and
coworkers.25
Five novel mutations in the FECH of EPP patients Three different abnormal DGGE patterns, one in each patient, were observed in the DGGE gel of fragment 11a (Figure 1A,B). Direct sequencing of the genomic DNA unveiled a point mutation G1217 A that converted
Cys-406 into Tyr (ie, C406Y) in patient I. In patient II,
the same nucleotide G1217 was mutated into a C,
resulting in a substitution of Cys-406 to Ser (ie, C406S).
Besides the abnormality in 11a, the DNA sample from patient III
exhibited another mobility shift in fragment 11b (Figure 1B and Table
2). Sequencing of exon 11 disclosed 3 point mutations located in a close vicinity, T1224 A,
C1225 T, and T1231 G, predicating
amino acid substitutions of N408K, P409S, and C411G, respectively
(Figure 2). Interestingly, the mutated
cysteine codons correspond to the codons of 2 of the [2Fe-2S] cluster
ligands.12,13 No additional sequence abnormalities were
identified in the other 10 exons of the FECH gene among all
3 patients by DGGE analysis.
Subsequently, members of family III were screened for the triple
mutations by sequencing of exon 11. As indicated in the pedigree of
family III, 4 of the 5 tested individuals were positive for these
mutations (Figure 3). The fact that the
FECH gene of the patient's mother was totally absent for
any of the mutations suggested that all 3 mutations aligned on a single
FECH gene allele from the father.
Clinical and biochemical characterization of the EPP patients with identified mutations All of the EPP patients exhibited photosensitivy, although the intensity and onset of photosensitivity varied within the families. Erythrocyte protoporphyrin concentration was increased as is characteristic of patients with EPP (Table 2).In vitro expression of mutated FECH genes The expression of the mutated FECH genes was assessed by engineering the mutations observed in the EPP patients in an E coli expression plasmid containing the FECH wild-type gene. Extracts of bacterial cells harboring the different FECH variants indicated no detectable enzymatic activity (Table 3) confirming the importance of the cysteine residues to the proper functioning of FECH. Curiously, the 2 other mutations (ie, N408K and P409S) present in the family III carrier of the triple mutation had no effect on the enzymatic activity (Table 3).
To date, more than 60 different mutations have been identified in the FECH gene of patients with EPP. The majority of them (around 80%) are the so-called "null allele" mutations, namely, mutations that lead to formation of a truncated, and therefore, inactive enzyme. The "null allele" mutations include nonsense mutations and all frameshift mutations resulting from short nucleotide deletions or insertions and exon skippings. Thirteen different point mutations in the FECH gene have
been identified previously in EPP; in this study, we describe 5 additional point mutations. It should be emphasized that not all point
mutations inhibit enzymatic activity. For example, mutation M267I
(G801 These findings stress the need for an in vitro characterization of individual point mutations to differentiate causal mutations from rare polymorphisms. Typically, the assessment of the impact of the EPP mutations on FECH activity has been carried out with recombinant FECH variants, which mimic the mutations identified in patients with EPP and are overproduced in prokaryotic expression systems. Unlike the "null allele" mutations, point mutations provide information on the function of individual amino acids on the overall enzymatic activity. In this study, EPP phenotypes bearing mutations of cysteine codons corresponding to the codons of 2 of the [2Fe-2S] cluster ligands demonstrated the crucial role that these cysteine residues played in vivo. Previous site-directed mutagenesis studies of the iron-sulfur cluster ligands have shown that the metal center is essential for the stability, and consequently, for the function of mammalian FECH13 (and A. Pereira, P. Tavares, and G. C. Ferreira, unpublished results). The physiologic role of the [2Fe-2S] cluster in mammalian FECH remains to be established unequivocally, but it is clear from this study that its absence leads to FECH variants with altered biochemical properties and with serious clinical implications. A rather peculiar feature of EPP is that only about 10% of the individuals with defective FECH develop clinical symptoms. In other words, EPP has a clinical penetrance of approximately 10%. The recent molecular genetic studies on EPP have not only led to the unveiling of numerous mutations in the FECH gene, but also have shed light on the mechanism of clinical manifestation in EPP.5,19,23 The genotype of a patient with overt EPP is a combination of a mutated FECH gene allele, which is totally devoid of enzyme activity, and a "low expressed" FECH gene allele, which produces about 50% of the normal amount of messenger RNA (mRNA). Had an individual the combination of a mutated allele and a normal FECH gene allele, he or she would be asymptomatic. These conclusions were drawn based on the results of mRNA quantification in 5 EPP families.19 However, direct measurement of the mRNA output from the FECH gene alleles to determine the clinical outcome of an individual, besides being a complex procedure, is not always possible because it requires the individual being a heterozygote for either 798G/C or 1520C/T dimorphisms. Two other SNPs in the FECH gene, In this study, haplotyping analysis was not possible in families I and
II for which only DNA from the respective probands was available to us.
However, we conducted genotypic analysis in family III at the request
of the patient. As shown in Figure 3, both symptomatic patients (the
index patient and his brother) exhibited the haplotype ( Moreover, the clinical expression or the severity of the disease varies
among patients with EPP. The majority of the symptomatic patients
manifest only a photosensitivity of the skin. Fewer than 5% of the
patients develop in addition to cutaneous photosensitivity, liver
complications in the form of a progressive liver cirrhosis and liver
failure due to a massive accumulation of protoporphyrin in the liver More than 60 different mutations have so far been identified in approximately 100 EPP patients from over 80 unrelated EPP families, among which 19 patients suffered from EPP-related liver disease. Some interesting facts can be observed among these cases. Namely, all known patients with a liver complication carried a "null allele" mutation. In contrast, none of the 18 patients carrying a missense mutation have developed liver complications. This observation suggests a genotype-phenotype correlation between the FECH gene mutations and the EPP manifestation.27 In this study, all symptomatic patients carried a missense mutation. Except for patient II, from whom no data regarding the liver function was available to us, the rest of the patients had normal liver function. At this stage, it is premature to conclude that patients with a missense mutation will not ever develop liver complications because the total number of patients studied, especially those with liver complications, is limited. Molecular studies continue to make important contributions to the understanding of the pathogenesis of EPP. However, both the "low expression" and the "null allele" mechanisms stemmed from limited experimental and clinical data. Molecular genetic analysis in a large number of EPP families should therefore remain an important objective for EPP research.
Submitted January 5, 2000; accepted April 10, 2000.
Supported by grants from the American Cancer Society (BE-248) and the National Institutes of Health (DK51186) (to G.C.F.), SNf 31-53799.98 and die Stiftung für Wissenschaftliche Forschung an der Universität Zürich (to X.S.-Y.) and INSERM U409 and Université Paris 7 (to J.-C.D.).
X.S.-Y. and L.G. contributed equally to this work.
The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. Therefore, and solely to indicate this fact, this article is hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. section 1734.
Reprints: Jean-Charles Deybach, Centre Français des Porphyries, INSERM U409, Faculté X. Bichat, Hôpital Louis Mourier, Colombes, France; e-mail: jc.deybach{at}wanadoo.fr.
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© 2000 by The American Society of Hematology.
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S D Whatley, N G Mason, M Khan, M Zamiri, M N Badminton, W N Missaoui, T A Dailey, H A Dailey, W S Douglas, N J Wainwright, et al. Autosomal recessive erythropoietic protoporphyria in the United Kingdom: prevalence and relationship to liver disease J. Med. Genet., August 1, 2004; 41(8): e105 - e105. [Full Text] [PDF] |
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S. T. Magness, N. Maeda, and D. A. Brenner An exon 10 deletion in the mouse ferrochelatase gene has a dominant-negative effect and causes mild protoporphyria Blood, July 30, 2002; 100(4): 1470 - 1477. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
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