[Analysis of STK11 gene variants among 64 patients with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome]

To screen for pathogenic variants in the coding regions of STK11 gene among Chinese patients with Peutz-Jeghers syndrome (PJS).

Peripheral blood samples were collected from 64 patients. The coding regions of the STK11 gene were detected by PCR and Sanger sequencing.

Fourty-eight patients were found to harbor STK11 gene variants, which included 39 types of variants consisting of missense, nonsense, insertional, deletional and splice site variants. Among 64 PJS patients, the detection rate of point variants was 75.00% (48/64), of which missense variants accounted for 29.17% (14/48), nonsense variants accounted for 29.17%(14/48), insertion variants accounted for 2.08% (1/48), deletional variants accounted for 10.42% (5/48), and splice site variants accounted for 29.17% (14/48). The detection rates of sporadic cases and those with a family history were 71.8% (28/39) and 80.0% (20/25), respectively. Two variants (c.250A>T, c.580G>A) occurred in 3 PJS probands. Thirteen variants were unreported previously and were considered to be pathogenic.

The detection rate of variants among Chinese PJS patients is similar to that of other countries. A number of novel common variant sites were discovered, which enriched the spectrum of PJS-related variants.