TARDBP mutations are not a frequent cause of ALS in Finnish patients
Mentula, H.-K.; Tuovinen, L.; Penttilä, S.; Suominen, T.; Udd, B.; Palmio, J.
Acta Myologica Myopathies and Cardiomyopathies Official Journal of the Mediterranean Society of Myology 31(2): 134-138
2012
ISSN/ISBN: 1128-2460 PMID: 23097605 Document Number: 660526
In previous studies 1-3 % of ALS patients have TARDBP mutations as the cause of the disease. TARDBP mutations have been reported in ALS patients in different populations but so far there are no studies on the frequency of TARDBP mutations in Finnish ALS patients. A cohort of 50 Finnish patients, 44 SALS and 6 FALS patients, were included in the study. Genomic DNA was extracted from venous blood or muscle tissue and a mutation analysis of TARDBP was performed. No definitely pathogenic mutations could be identified in TARDBP in our patient cohort. However, two previously unknown variations were found: one silent mutation in exon 2 and one relatively deep intronic single nucleotide insertion in intron 5. In addition, two previously known non-pathogenic polymorphisms in intron 5 were detected. The size of our cohort is obviously not large enough to conclusively exclude TARDBP mutations as a very rare cause of ALS in Finland. However, based on our results TARDBP mutations do not appear to be a frequent cause of familial or sporadic ALS in Finland.