A Novel Missense Mutation of the Grk1 Gene in Oguchi Disease

Abstract

Oguchi disease is a rare form of congenital stationary night blindness with an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern. The presence of S-antigen (SAG) and G-protein-dependent receptor kinase 1 (GRK1) mutations were investigated in the family members with Oguchi disease. All exons of the SAG and GRK1 genes were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and sequenced. The patients were shown to have characteristic clinical features of Oguchi disease. Gene analysis determined a novel GRK1 mutation c.923T>C, which caused Oguchi disease in all siblings. This mutation, was demonstrated by amino acid alignment analysis to be in a phylogenetically conserved region and resulted in an amino acid change from leucine to proline at position 308. Thus, the present study reports a novel missense mutation of GRK1 in the affected members of a consanguineous Turkish family. Homozygosity at position 308, which resides in the catalytic domain of the GRK1 gene, is the cause of Oguchi disease in this Turkish family.