Identification of two novel mutations in the SLCO2A1 prostaglandin transporter gene in a Chinese patient with primary hypertrophic osteoarthropathy

Primary hypertrophic osteoarthropathy (PHO), which is a rare multi-organic disease characterized by digital clubbing, pachydermia and periosteal reaction, typically begins during childhood or adolescence and progresses gradually over years prior to disease stabilization. To date, only two genes have been reported to be associated with PHO, 15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase and solute carrier organic anion transporter family, member 2A1 (SLCO2A1). However, the pathogenesis and the functions of the underlying genes remain to be fully elucidated. In the present study, a 20-year-old Chinese patient with PHO was investigated using sequence analysis of PHO genes and bioinformatics analysis. A novel, compound heterozygous mutation in the SLCO2A1 gene was identified, which contained two novel mutations: c.349delC (p.L117SfsX56) in exon 3 and c.1286A>G (p.Y429C) in exon 9. These two novel genotypes in PHO are the first, to the best of our knowledge, to be reported in PHO. This finding expands the mutation spectrum of PHO, which contributes to improving genetic diagnosis and future genetic counseling, and provides clues to the phenotype-genotype associations.