Sequencing of the Reannotated LMNB2 Gene Reveals Novel Mutations in Patients with Acquired Partial Lipodystrophy

The etiology of acquired partial lipodystrophy (APL, also called “Barraquer-Simons syndrome”) is unknown. Genomic DNA mutations affecting the nuclear lamina protein lamin A cause inherited partial lipodystrophy but are not found in patients with APL. Because it also encodes a nuclear lamina protein (lamin B2) and its genomic structure was recently reannotated, we sequenced LMNB2 as a candidate gene in nine white patients with APL. In four patients, we found three new rare mutations in LMNB2: intron 1 −6G→T, exon 5 c.643G→A (p.R215Q; in two patients), and exon 8 c.1218G→A (p.A407T). The combined frequency of these mutations was 0.222 in the patients with APL, compared with 0.0018 in a multiethnic control sample of 1,100 subjects (P=2.1×10−7) and 0.0045 in a sample of 330 white controls (P=1.2×10−5). These novel heterozygous mutations are the first reported for LMNB2, are the first reported among patients with APL, and indicate how sequencing of a reannotated candidate gene can reveal new disease-associated mutations.