Erythropoietic protoporphyria: four novel frameshift mutations in the ferrochelatase gene

Human erythropoietic protoporphyria is an inherited disorder of the heme metabolic pathway caused by defects in the gene for ferrochelatase, the terminal enzyme of the pathway that catalyzes chelation of ferrous iron into protoporphyrin IX to form heme. Mutation analysis was performed for families with erythropoietic protoporphyria and four novel frameshift mutations were identified. Two of the mutations, 205insA and 215insT in exon 3 of the ferrochelatase gene, are single bp insertions. The other two, 400delA in exon 4 and 678delG in exon 6, are single bp deletions. All of the mutations result in premature termination codons downstream shortly after the mutation sites, and in one case the premature termination codon caused by 400delA was also shown to reduce mRNA level via nonsense-mediated mRNA decay.