Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Mutations of the RET gene in isolated and syndromic Hirschsprung’s disease in human disclose major and modifier alleles at a single locus
  1. L de Pontual1,
  2. A Pelet1,
  3. D Trochet1,
  4. F Jaubert2,
  5. Y Espinosa-Parrilla1,
  6. A Munnich1,
  7. J-F Brunet3,
  8. C Goridis3,
  9. J Feingold1,
  10. S Lyonnet1,
  11. J Amiel1
  1. 1Université Paris-Descartes, Faculté de Médecine; INSERM; AP-HP, Hôpital Necker-Enfant Malades, INSERM U-393, Paris, France
  2. 2Service d’Anatomopathologie, Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades, AP-HP
  3. 3CNRS UMR 8542, Département de Biologie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
  1. Correspondence to:
 Dr Jeanne Amiel
 Département de Génétique, Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades, 149, rue de Sèvres, 75743 Paris Cedex 15, France; amiel{at}necker.fr

Abstract

Background: In Hirschsprung’s disease (HSCR), a hypomorphic allele of a major gene, RET, accounts for most isolated (non-syndromic) cases, along with other autosomal susceptibility loci under a multiplicative model. However, some syndromic forms of HSCR are monogenic entities, for which the disease causing gene is known.

Objective: To determine whether RET could be considered a modifier gene for the enteric phenotype on the background of a monogenic trait.

Methods: The syndromic HSCR entities studied were congenital central hypoventilation (CCHS) and Mowat-Wilson syndrome (MWS), caused by PHOX2B and ZFHX1B gene mutations, respectively. The RET locus was genotyped in 143 CCHS patients, among whom 44 had HSCR, and in 30 MWS patients, among whom 20 had HSCR. The distribution of alleles, genotypes, and haplotypes was compared within the different groups. To test the interaction in vivo, heterozygous mice were bred for a null allele of Phox2b and Ret genes.

Results:RET was shown to act as a modifier gene for the HSCR phenotype in patients with CCHS but not with MWS. The intestine of double heterozygote mice was indistinguishable from their littermates. A loss of over 50% of each gene function seemed necessary in the mouse model for an enteric phenotype to occur.

Conclusions: In CCHS patients, the weak predisposing haplotype of the RET gene can be regarded as a quantitative trait, being a risk factor for the HSCR phenotype, while in MWS, for which the HSCR penetrance is high, the role of the RET predisposing haplotype is not significant. It seems likely that there are both RET dependent and RET independent HSCR cases.

  • CCHS, congenital central hypoventilation syndrome
  • HSCR, Hirschsprung’s disease
  • MWS, Mowat-Wilson syndrome
  • SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism
  • Hirschsprung’s disease
  • congenital central hypoventilation syndrome
  • RET
  • modifier gene

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Published Online First 27 January 2006

  • Conflicts of interest: none declared