Denaturing high performance liquid chromatography screening of ryanodine receptor type 1 gene in patients with malignant hyperthermia in Taiwan and identification of a novel mutation (Y522C).

We performed the present study to identify the mutation in patients in Taiwan with malignant hyperthermia (MH). We also test the hypothesis that a denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography (DHPLC) protocol can be used for mutation detection in these patients. We identified five Taiwanese patients with typical clinical presentations of MH after general anesthesia. We also enrolled 50 healthy volunteers. Polymerase chain reaction was used to amplify the ryanodine receptor (RYR1) gene mutation hot spots and DHPLC techniques were used to screen for mutations. Upon detection of a heterozygous elution pattern in DHPLC analysis, DNA sequencing reaction was performed to identify the nucleotide variations. We identified a RYR1 mutation in all 5 patients with MH. There were 4 different mutations in the 5 patients: Tyr522Cys, Arg552Trp, Val2168Met, and Thr2206Arg. Among the 5 patients, 2 unrelated patients had the same Thr2206Arg mutation. Three of the mutations had been reported before, but the Tyr522Cys mutation was novel. None of the MH-related mutations were found in the control group. In conclusion, we identified RYR1 mutations in 5 Taiwanese patients with MH using a DHPLC-based approach. A DHPLC-based genetic test may be developed as a noninvasive and convenient test for MH.