Detection of a novel splice-site mutation that results in skipping exon 3 of the WASP gene in a patient with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome.

Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) is one of the primary immunodeficiency diseases, that is inherited as an X-linked recessive trait. Since the responsible gene, the WASP gene, has been identified, various mutations for patients with WAS have been reported. We found a novel splice-site mutation in a patient with clinically diagnosed WAS. The mutation was a replacement of ag by aa in an acceptor site of intron 2 of the WASP gene. Sequencing studies of the WASP cDNA of the patient revealed that exon 3 of the WASP gene was abnormally missing due to a splicing defect.