Molecular studies of Japanese patients with group A xeroderma pigmentosum using polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism and nonradioactive single strand conformation polymorphism analyses.

Xeroderma pigmentosum is an autosomal recessive disease characterized by extreme sensitivity of the skin to ultraviolet light, which results in a high incidence of early skin cancer. We report here the molecular analysis of the xeroderma pigmentosum group A complementing genes of five Japanese patients with group A xeroderma pigmentosum and their families, by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis, and by PCR and non-radioactive single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis using the Pharmacia PhastSystem. Four of the five patients were found to be homozygous for a known splicing mutation of intron 3. One patient was found to be heterozygous for the splicing mutation of intron 3 and a known nonsense mutation of exon 6. This nonradioactive PCR-SSCP technique was as useful for the molecular diagnosis of patients with group A xeroderma pigmentosum as was PCR-RFLP analysis.