Two TP53 germline mutations in a classical Li-Fraumeni syndrome family
Liselotte P. van Hest . Marielle W. G. Ruijs . Anja Wagner . Conny A. van der Meer · Senno Verhoef . Laura J. van’t Veer . Hanne Meijers-Heijboer
Received: 8 December 2006/ Accepted: 18 December 2006/Published online: 23 February 2007 C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007
Abstract Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is an autoso- mal dominantly inherited cancer predisposition syn- drome characterized by a combination of tumors including sarcoma, breast cancer, brain tumors, adre- nocortical carcinoma and leukemia. Germline muta- tions in the tumor suppressor gene TP53 are associated with LFS. We present a family with LFS in which ini- tially a novel germline TP53 intron 5 splice site mutation was found. A second germline TP53 muta- tion, the exon 7 Asn235Ser (704A → G) mutation, was detected in this family through pre-symptomatic DNA testing. This latter mutation has been reported repeatedly in the literature as a pathogenic mutation involved in LFS. We provide evidence for pathoge- nicity of the novel intron 5 splice site mutation, whereas this evidence is lacking for the exon 7 Asn235Ser (704A → G) mutation. Our findings emphasize the importance of performing additional tests in case of germline sequence variants with uncertain functional effects.
Liselotte P. van Hest and Mariëlle W.G. Ruijs contributed equally to this work.
L. P. van Hest . A. Wagner . C. A. van der Meer .
H. Meijers-Heijboer Department of Clinical Genetics, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
M. W. G. Ruijs · S. Verhoef . L. J. van’t Veer Family Cancer Clinic, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
M. W. G. Ruijs . H. Meijers-Heijboer Department of Clinical Genetics and Human Genetics, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: h.meijers@vumc.nl
Keywords Functional assay · Li-Fraumeni syndrome . TP53 germline mutations · Unclassified variants
Introduction
Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) was first described in 1969 [1] as a hereditary cancer predisposition syn- drome characterized by the occurrence of bone and soft tissue sarcoma, breast cancer, brain tumors, adre- nocortical carcinoma and leukemia. Germline muta- tions in the TP53 tumor suppressor gene on chromosome 17p13 were associated with LFS in 1990 [2]. About 75% of clinical LFS-families carry a TP53 germline mutation, and 40% of families with the less stringent criteria of Li-Fraumeni-like syndrome (LFL) [3]. So far, 283 different pathogenic germline mutations have been reported of which 74% are missense muta- tions and 4% splice site mutations [4]. LFS is a very rare disease, and therefore it is not surprising that thus far only one family with more than one germline mutation has been reported [5]. Quesnel et al. de- scribed a child with a rhabdomyosarcoma at two years of age and a brain tumor at age 10 who carried three different TP53 germline alterations (R290H on one allele and R156H/R267Q on the other allele). Indi- vidual analysis of each mutant indicated that they separately have either a weak mutant phenotype or no mutant phenotype at all. However, the R156H/R267Q double mutant had a strong mutant behavior [5, 6].
TP53 knock out mice are viable and are usually born without any observable gross defects, but then rapidly develop a variety of tumors, including sarcomas and other tumors commonly seen in LFS [7-9].
We here describe a classical LFS family with two germline TP53 mutations; one novel splice site muta- tion, and one missense mutation that had been classi- fied as a pathogenic germline mutation before.
Patients and methods
The family (Fig. 1) was of Dutch ancestry and pre- sented at the department of Clinical Genetics at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam. Family history data were confirmed through medical records and pathology re- ports. Informed consent was obtained from the pa- tients or from a first degree relative in case the patient was deceased. DNA was isolated from peripheral lymphocytes according to standard procedures. From deceased affected family members DNA was extracted from paraffin embedded blocks of the tumor. Screen- ing for TP53 germline mutations was performed by sequence analysis of all coding exons (2-11) and flanking intron-exon boundaries. The functional effect of the germline mutations was examined by FASAY, a yeast-based assay studying the biological transcrip- tional ability of p53 [10]. In a control group of 150 anonymous blood donors the presence of both mutations was analyzed by denaturing gel electropho- resis (DGGE). Immunohistochemical staining was performed in seven affected family members to assess the presence of the p53 protein, using the mouse monoclonal antibody DO7, according to standard procedures. (Dako, Glostrup, Denmark). Two splice
site prediction programs were applied to examine the two mutations (NetGene2 Server and BDGP splice site prediction by Neural Network [11, 12]). The conser- vation throughout evolution of the mutational spots and the polarity status of the normal and mutated amino acids were studied. Two TP53 mutation-data- bases were checked: the IARQ TP53 database [4] and the p53 Soussi mutation database cancer [4, 13].
Results
The pedigree is depicted in Fig. 1 and further clinical details are outlined in Table 1. The family was clini- cally diagnosed with Li-Fraumeni syndrome. Based on the family history, it seemed likely that individual II-10 might have had a de novo TP53 mutation, which he subsequently had passed to the majority of his off- spring (individual II-10 and his offspring, further called core-family). Another hypothesis would be the pres- ence of a germline mosaicism in individual II-10 or his spouse.
A novel intron 5 splice site mutation (IVS5-1 G → A) was found in the index patient (pedigree number III-4). This TP53 mutation segregated with the disease; the 5 affected family members of the core family of whom DNA was available were carriers (pedigree numbers II-10, III-4, III-7, III-8 and III-12). The mutation was inherited paternally. The sister of the father who developed pancreatic cancer at 69 years of age (pedigree number II-1) did not carry the intron 5
II-1 PaC69
II-2 Abd?>50
II-9
II-10 LuC51 intron 5 + exon 7 -
II-11
II-12
II-13
CRC62
intron 5 - exon 7 -
ca?>50
PrC?67
(exon 7 +)
intron 5 - exon 7 +
2
3
III-1
III-2 Brain41
III-3 Sarc22
III-4 PaC52 intron 5 + exon 7 -
III-5 Sarc2
III-6
III-7 Brain40 intron 5 + exon 7 -
III-8 Sarc36, larynx48 intron 5 + exon 7 +
III-10
III-11
III-12 Sarc11
III-15
intron 5 - exon 7 +
intron 5 - exon 7 +
intron 5+ exon 7 -
intron 5 - exon 7 -
2
4
3
3
IV-11
Sarc25
| Patient | Diagnosis | Age of onset | Intron 5: IVS 5-1G > A | Exon 7: Asn235Ser (704 A -> G) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| II-1 | pancreatic adenocarcinoma | 69 | - (t) | - (t) |
| II-2 | abdominal cancer, not verified | >50 | ||
| II-9 | cancer, not verified | >50 | ||
| II-10 | small cell lung carcinoma | 51 | + (t) | - (t) |
| II-11 | healthy, 83 years of age | not tested | not tested, obligate carrier | |
| II-12 | prostate cancer, not verified | 67 | ||
| II-13 | adenocarcinoma of colon transversum | 62 | - (t) | + (t) |
| III-2 | oligodendroglioma | 41 | ||
| III-3 | osteosarcoma of the humerus | 22 | material not suitable for analysis | material not suitable for analysis, suspicion wild type |
| III-4 | pancreatic adenocarcinoma | 52 | + (b) | - (b) |
| III-5 | lymphosarcoma of the kidney | 2 | ||
| III-6 | this girl died at the age of twelve months, reason unknown | |||
| III-7 | anaplastic oligodendroglioma | 40 | + (t) | - (t) |
| III-8 | leiomyosarcoma right leg laryngeal | 36 | + (t) | + (t) |
| carcinoma | ||||
| III-10 | healthy, 51 years of age | 48 | - (b) | + (b) |
| III-11 | healthy, 47 years of age | - (b) | + (b) | |
| III-12 | rabdomyosarcoma, retroperitoneal | 11 | + (t) | - (t) |
| III-15 | healthy, 67 years of age | - (b) | - (b) | |
| IV-x | healthy, 29 years of age | + (b) | - (b) | |
| IV-11 | leiomyosarcoma of the face | 25 | not tested | not tested |
Not verified = diagnosis by family history, >50 = age of onset over 50 years, t = tested on DNA isolated from tissue, b = tested on DNA isolated from blood, + = mutation present, - = mutation absent, not tested = mutation analysis not performed
mutation. One healthy individual was shown to be a carrier at the age of 29 years.
FASAY analysis showed that the intron 5 mutation lacks biological transcriptional activity (photo of data not shown). In 300 control alleles the intron 5 germ- line mutation was not found. Immunohistochemical staining for p53 was negative in all tumors of the carriers of the intron 5 mutation. A phenomenon more frequently observed for TP53 splice site muta- tions. Two splice site prediction programs confirmed that the effect of this mutation is splicing out of exon 6, leading to a frameshift with a transcriptional stop early in exon 7. The IVS5-1 affects a 100% conserved splice acceptor site.
The exon 7 missense mutation, Asn235Ser (704A → G), was initially detected in a presymptom- atic test of relative III-10. The mutation did not seg- regate with the disease as 4 out of 5 cancer patients from the core-family did not carry this mutation, while three healthy women were found carriers at the ages of 47, 51 and 83 years (pedigree numbers III-10, III-11 and II-11, the last one being an obligate carrier). The single affected carrier in the core family (pedigree number III-8) developed a sarcoma at 36 years and laryngeal carcinoma at 48 years. The Asn235Ser mutation turned out to be maternally transmitted as individual II-13 carried this mutation. She developed
colorectal cancer at 62 years of age. Interestingly, the healthy daughter of this woman (pedigree number III- 15), who’s daughter died of a leiomyosarcoma of the face, tested negative for the exon 7 mutation. FASAY analysis showed that the Asn235Ser mutation had normal transcriptional activity (photo of data not shown). In 300 control alleles this mutation was found once. Immunohistochemical staining for p53 was neg- ative in tumor material of both affected mutation carriers, including the tumor of the patient with both germline mutations (pedigree number III-8). Two dif- ferent splice site prediction programs were unanimous in their prediction that the Asn235Ser mutation did not create a cryptic splice site. Orthologous, the Aspara- gine on this spot is conserved in mouse and rat but not in certain fish. Of note, some fish have a Serine instead of Asparagine at this spot. Paralogous, the Asparagine is conserved in TP51, TP63 and TP73. The polarity of the amino acids Asparagine and Serine is similar. The Asn235Ser mutation was reported 5 times in the TP53 germline mutation databases screened.
Discussion
We here present a LFS family with, at first sight, two pathogenic germline TP53 mutations. Additional tests,
however, showed that one of them was highly unlikely to be causative to the disease phenotype.
The novel TP53 intron 5 splice site mutation (IVS5-1 G > A) was first detected. We considered this mutation causative to LFS in view of its co-segregation with the 5 affected cases in the core-family, its func- tional consequence (stop of transcription early in exon 7), and the 100% conservation of this splice acceptor site throughout evolution. We therefore offered the family presymptomatic testing for this mutation. In the process, surprisingly, a missense mutation in exon 7 Asn235Ser (704A → G) was detected, which had been classified before as a pathogenic germline mutation in multiple reports (see Table 2) [14-18]. In order to provide meaningful diagnostic genetic testing within this family, we defined the predicted contribution of each of the mutations to the disease phenotype in more detail. In summary, all data obtained on the novel in- tron 5 mutation pointed towards a causative associa- tion of this mutation with LFS within the core-family.
In contrast, the exon 7 Asn235Ser mutation did not segregate with disease in the core-family as only 1 out of 5 affected cases carried this mutation while three healthy individuals were found carriers at ages 47, 51 and 83 years. Of note, a third-degree relative of the core-family who died of leiomyosarcoma at age 25 years was also excluded as a carrier. The immuno- histochemical staining of the two tumors of carriers of the Asn235Ser showed no expression of p53, while positive staining is commonly seen for a pathogenic missense mutation [19]. Although generally codon 100-300 is called the DNA binding domain, codon 235 is not directly involved in DNA-binding; it is located in between two domains that interact extensively to pro- vide DNA contacts [20]. Therefore, this mutation was likely not to affect the DNA-binding properties of p53. Indeed, normal results, DNA-binding properties and transcription activation, were obtained by FASAY.
The Asn235Ser mutation has been reported in the germline five times before (Table 2) [14-18]. None of the authors of these reports found the mutation in a classical LFS family. The authors unfortunately per- formed no functional assays, or determined its preva- lence in healthy controls.
Still, three out of these five reports classified the mutation as pathogenic. Diller et al. [14] and Auer et al. [17] based their conclusion on the fact that the mutation had been described as a somatic mutation in
cancer before. Huusko et al. [18] described a LFL family with this mutation. The predominant cancer type in this family was breast cancer and no BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation was identified. They claimed the mutation to be pathogenic on the basis of results in the tumors regarding loss of heterozygosity of the TP53 locus and p53 immunohistochemistry, and on the fact that the mutation had been associated with cancer predisposition before by Diller et al.[14] and Cornelis et al.[15]. To note, the mutation did co- segregate; two out of three patients in this family were tested. Both were carriers, however, also two healthy adults were carrier. Ponten et al. [16] con- cluded the mutation to be a rare polymorphism. He found the Asn235Ser in a 72 year old male with two basal cell carcinoma’s in which he found also two somatic TP53 mutations. Cornelis et al. [15] recom- mended functional assays to determine the patho- genic nature of this mutation.
Soussi et al. [6] studied all somatic TP53 mutations of the TP53 mutation database (http://p53.curie.fr) by using very extended functional assays. They analyzed the transactivation activity of the mutations with re- spect to eight promotors and compared the activity to p53 wild type (wt) activity. The Asn235Ser mutation was described 14 times as a somatic mutation, 6 times in combination with another somatic mutation. The mean activity of Asn235Ser on 8 promotors was 86% of wt activity, well above their cut off point for path- ogenic mutations (<20% of wt activity).
Besides the fact that Asparagine is conserved in paralogs, all data provide evidence that Asn235Ser is a rare polymorphism or at best a low penetrance allele rather than a pathogenic mutation for LFS. It is remarkable that this mutation is found often in com- bination with another (either somatic or germline) mutation.
Our case report illustrates potential pitfalls in clinical genetic testing for cancer susceptibility. In order to provide optimal accurate risk assessment in cancer susceptibility testing, critical literature study is a prerequisite. We showed the importance of confir- mation of carrier status of all affected family mem- bers once a pathogenic mutation within the family is found. Also, in case of sequence variants with uncertain functional consequences, additional tests are mandatory before genetic testing is offered in clinical settings.
NetGene2 server (splice site finder), www.cbs.dtu.dk./
services/NetGene2/
BDGP splice site prediction by Neural Network,
www.fruitfly.org/seq_tools/splice.html
IARQ TP53 database, http://www-p53.iarc.fr/ p53 Soussi mutation database cancer, http://
p53.free.fr/
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| Author | Familial diagnosis | Index/age at diagnosis | Family history | Segregation | LOH | IHC | BRCA1/ BRCA2 | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diller 1995 | Single case | RMS 19 months | neg | – | ND | ND | – | follow up 19 yr |
| Cornelis | HBOC | BrC 26 yr, | mother OvC, sister BrC | ND | First tumor neg, recurrence pos | pos | ND | second somatic TP53 mutation (G245V) |
| 1997 | recurrence 30 yr | |||||||
| Ponten 1997 | Single case | BCC 72 yr | Neg | – | pos | neg | – | follow up 8 yr 2 other somatic mutations |
| Auer 1999 | LuC family | LuC 39 yr | 2 brothers LuC at 42 yr and 65 yr | ND | ND | ND | – | smoking 60 pack/yr |
| Huusko | LFL-family | bil BrC 57 yr | sister BrC 43 years, nephew Ep 19 yr | nephew Ep 19 yr: carrier two healthy adults: carrier | BrC: neg Ep: pos | BrC: pos | neg | |
| 1999 | Ep: neg |
HBOC = hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, LuC = lung cancer, LFL-family = Li-Fraumeni-like family, RMS = rhabdomyosarcoma, BrC = breast cancer, yr = years, BCC = basal cell carcinoma, bil = bilateral, neg = negative, OvC = ovarian cancer, Ep = ependyoma, - = not applicable, ND = not done, LOH = loss of heterozygosity, IHC = immunohistochemical staining, pos = positive, BRCA1/BRCA2 = BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation analysis
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