Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia is caused by the Q490X mutation of the ACVRL1 gene in a large Arab family: support of homozygous lethality
In a large Saudi Arabian family with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT), we identified ACVRL1 (ALK1) nonsense mutation Q490X in 40 HHT patients and three healthy children, but neither in 11 individuals with epistaxis, 41 other healthy family members, nor in 50 healthy unrelated Saudi Arabian controls. Sequence analysis of the entire coding region of the ACVRL1 and ENG genes in five of the 11 epistaxic individuals did not reveal any other disease-causing mutation. Epistaxis seems to be a relatively common phenocopy of HHT in the family under study. One couple, both affected by HHT and carriers of Q490X, had 12 pregnancies. Three of them ended in spontaneous abortion, four in early neonatal death, and only five yielded living offspring, all of which had HHT and were Q490X heterozygous. This observation corroborates previous claims that homozygosity for HHT-causing mutations is lethal.