Familial partial lipodystrophy type 2 associated with a novel LMNA variant (c.604G>C; p.Glu202Gln): a Colombian...

Familial partial lipodystrophy type 2 (FPLD2) is a rare autosomal dominant laminopathy caused by LMNA gene variants. It is characterized by progressive gluteofemoral lipoatrophy and severe metabolic derangements, including insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.

Three Colombian women (two sisters and a daughter) underwent standardized clinical phenotyping, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), cardiometabolic laboratory testing, and next-generation sequencing-based testing for lipodystrophy-related genes with copy-number variant analysis.

All patients carried the heterozygous LMNA variant c.604G>C (p.Glu202Gln). Patients 1 and 2 exhibited classic Dunnigan phenotypes with diabetes and severe hypertriglyceridemia (up to 1,471 mg/dL), as well as imaging evidence of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. Patient 3 (age 27) presented an evolving phenotype with central adiposity, clinically reported lower-limb fat loss, and insulin resistance (homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance [HOMA-IR], 4), without hepatic steatosis on abdominal ultrasound. Management optimization in Patients 1 and 2 using contemporary combination therapy, including glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist-based treatment and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors, was followed by sustained improvement in glycemia (HbA1c 11.1% to 7.6% in Patient 1) and triglycerides. In Patient 3, liraglutide was discontinued due to poor tolerability and limited weight response, and she was transitioned to semaglutide in February 2026.

This case series expands the phenotypic spectrum of LMNA-associated FPLD2 and supports a disease association for the p.Glu202Gln variant despite its current classification as a variant of uncertain significance. It demonstrates that modern cardiometabolic therapies can be implemented in middle-income settings; however, the absence of functional data, population frequency metrics, and genetic testing in unaffected relatives limits the strength of variant interpretation.