Maternal uniparental meroisodisomy in the LAMB3 region of chromosome 1 results in lethal junctional epidermolysis bullosa.

Herlitz junctional epidermolysis bullosa (OMIM#226700) is a lethal, autosomal recessive blistering disorder caused by mutations in one of the three genes LAMA3, LAMB3, or LAMC2, encoding the constitutive polypeptide subunits of laminin 5. In this study, we describe a patient homozygous for a novel nonsense mutation Q936X in exon 19 of LAMB3, which has been mapped to chromosome 1q32. The patient was born with extensive blistering and demonstrated negative immunofluorescence staining for laminin 5, and transmission electron microscopy revealed tissue separation within lamina lucida of the dermal-epidermal junction, diagnostic of Herlitz junctional epidermolysis bullosa. The mother of the proband was found to be a heterozygous carrier for this mutation, whereas the father demonstrated the wild-type LAMB3 allele only. Nonpaternity was excluded by 13 microsatellite markers in six different chromosomes. Genotype analysis using 28 microsatellite markers spanning chromosome 1 revealed that the patient had maternal primary heterodisomy, as well as meroisodisomy within two regions of chromosome 1, one on 1p and the other one on 1q, the latter region containing the maternal LAMB3 mutation. These results suggest that Herlitz junctional epidermolysis bullosa in this patient developed as a result of reduction to homozygosity of the maternal LAMB3 mutation on chromosome 1q32.