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Nasrin A. Afshari, MD; James E. Mullally, MS; Mehran A. Afshari, MD, MPH; Roger F. Steinert, MD; Anthony P. Adamis, MD; Dimitri T. Azar, MD; Jonathan H. Talamo, MD; Claes H. Dohlman, MD, PhD; Thaddeus P. Dryja, MD

Arch Ophthalmol. 2001;119:16-22.

Objectives  To search for novel mutations that cause corneal stromal dystrophies and to confirm or revise the clinical diagnosis of patients with these mutations.

Patients  Through review of the records of the Cogan Eye Pathology Laboratory at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, and of clinical records, we ascertained 14 unrelated patients with the clinical or histopathologic diagnosis of granular (3 cases), Avellino (5 cases), lattice (5 cases), or Reis-Bücklers (1 case) corneal dystrophy.

Methods  Clinical records and histopathologic findings of the index patients and their relatives were reviewed. Patients and selected relatives donated a blood sample from which leukocyte DNA was purified and assayed for mutations in the BIGH3 gene and, in 2 patients, the gelsolin gene, using the polymerase chain reaction and direct genomic sequencing.

Results  All index patients with the diagnosis of granular dystrophy or Avellino dystrophy had the missense mutation Arg555Trp or Arg124His, respectively, previously reported in the BIGH3 gene. Of the 5 index patients with a prior diagnosis of lattice dystrophy, 2 had the originally reported lattice mutation (Arg124Cys) in the BIGH3 gene, 1 had a more recently reported missense mutation (His626Arg) in the same gene, 1 had the missense mutation Asp187Asn in the gelsolin gene, and 1 had no detected mutation in either gene. Affected members of the family with Reis-Bücklers dystrophy did not carry the previously reported mutations Arg555Gln or Arg124Leu but instead carried a novel missense mutation Gly623Asp in the BIGH3 gene.

Conclusions  Molecular genetic analysis can improve the accuracy of diagnosis of patients with corneal dystrophies. Two patients with a prior diagnosis of lattice corneal dystrophy had their diagnosis changed to gelsolin-related amyloidosis (1 case) or secondary, nonhereditary localized amyloidosis (1 case). A novel mutation in the BIGH3 gene that causes Reis-Bücklers dystrophy was uncovered through this analysis, and another recently reported novel mutation was encountered. These findings serve to expand our knowledge of the spectrum of pathogenic mutations in BIGH3.

From the Department of Ophthalmology (Drs N. A. Afshari, M. A. Afshari, Steinert, Adamis, Azar, Talamo, Dohlman, and Dryja), Harvard Medical School and the Ocular Molecular Genetics Institute (Mr Mullally and Dr Dryja), Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston.

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