A novel missense mutation in the ALPL gene causes dysfunction of the protein

Hypophosphatasia (HP) is a rare genetic disease caused by mutation in the alkaline phosphatase, liver/bone/kidney (ALPL) gene with highly variable clinical manifestations. Efforts have been made to collect cases with novel mutations and to examine how a missense mutation affects ALPL protein function, which remains difficult to predict. The present study investigated the underlying mechanism of ALPL dysfunction in a patient diagnosed with HP. Bidirectional sequencing of the ALPL gene was conducted in a 5-year-old Chinese girl preliminary diagnosed with childhood HP. Sorting Intolerant from Tolerant (SIFT) and Polymorphism Phenotyping v2 (PolyPhen-2) tools were used to forecast the impact of the mutation on protein function. Site-directed mutagenesis was performed and transfected into cells to verify the role of the specific mutation. Furthermore, the mechanism of the impact was investigated via all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The patient demonstrated a compound heterozygote with two missense mutations in the ALPL gene, p.Trp29Arg and p.Ile395Val. Trp29 and Ile395 were determined to be ‘tolerable’ by SIFT, whereas they were ‘possibly damaging’ by PolyPhen-2 in terms of conservation. Additionally, HEK293 cells were transfected with plasmids expressing wild type and/or mutated ALPL. Only 4.1% of ALP activity remained when Trp29 was substituted by Arg, whereas 19.1, 33.7, 50.1 and 7.6% ALP activity remained in cells expressing p.Ile395Val, wild type+p.Trp29Arg, wild type+p.Ile395Val and p.Trp29Arg+p.Ile395Val substitutions, respectively. All-atom MD simulation demonstrated that the N-terminal helix of mutated ALPL, where Trp29 is located, separated from the main body of the protein after 30 nsec, and moved freely. These results demonstrated that p.Trp29Arg, as a novel missense mutation in the ALPL gene, reduced the enzymatic activity of ALPL. This effect may be associated with an uncontrolled N-terminal helix. These results provide novel information about the genetic basis of HP, and may facilitate the development of future therapies.