RYR1 causing distal myopathy

Congenital myopathies due to ryanodine receptor (RYR1) mutations are increasingly identified and correlate with a wide range of phenotypes, most commonly that of malignant hyperthermia susceptibility and central cores on muscle biopsy with rare reports of distal muscle weakness, but in the setting of early onset global weakness.

We report a case of a patient presenting with childhood onset hand stiffness and adult onset progressive hand weakness and jaw contractures discovered to have two variants in the RYR1 gene.

The patient manifested with distal upper limb weakness which progressed to involve the distal lower limb, proximal upper limb, as well as the face in addition to limited jaw opening. Creatine kinase was mildly elevated with EMG findings supporting a myopathy. Muscle biopsy showed features consistent with centronuclear myopathy. Whole exome sequencing revealed a novel heterozygous pathogenic variant in RYR1 (c.12315_12328delAGAAATCCAGTTCC, p.Glu4106Alafs*8), and a heterozygous missense variant (c.10648C>T, p.Arg3550Trp) of unknown significance in compound heterozygous state.

We expand the spectrum of RYR1-related myopathy with the description of a novel phenotype in an adult patient presenting with hand weakness and suggest considering RYR1 analysis in the diagnosis of distal myopathies.