Diverse mutations in patients with Menkes disease often lead to exon skipping

Fibroblast cultures from 12 unrelated patients with classical Menkes disease were analyzed for mutations in the MNK gene, by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) and chemical cleavage mismatch detection. Mutations were observed in 10 patients, and in each case a different mutation was present. All of the mutations would be predicted to have adverse effects on protein expression. Mutations that resulted in splicing abnormalities, detected by RT-PCR alone, were observed in six patients and included two splice-site changes, a nonsense mutation, a missense mutation, a small duplication, and a small deletion. Chemical cleavage analysis of the remaining six patients revealed the presence of one nonsense mutation, two adjacent 5-bp deletions, and one missense mutation. A valine/leucine polymorphism was also observed. These findings, combined with the prior observation of deletions in 15%-20% of Menkes patients, suggest that Southern blot hybridization and RT-PCR will identify mutations in the majority of patients.