Cloning, expression, and activity analysis of human cathepsin C in the yeast Pichia pastoris

Papillon-Lefèvre syndrome (PLS) with novel compound heterozygous mutation in the exclusion and Peptidase C1A domains of Cathepsin C gene

Papillon Lefevre syndrome (PLS) manifests with palmoplantar keratoderma, combined with a rapidly progressive periodontitis associated with mutations in Cathepsin C (CTSC) gene. This article reports a 15-year old male proband with typical PLS traits having a novel compound heterozygote with p.Q49X mutation in exon 1 and p.Y259C missense mutation in exon 6 of CTSC gene respectively. The exon 1 mutation, p.Q49X, (found in proband's mother) was located in exclusion domain and exon 6 mutation, p.Y259C (found in proband's father), was present in peptidase C1A, papain C-terminal domain. Interestingly, missense mutation p.Y259C identified in this study was found to be not reported so far. Upon computational analysis, this missense mutation was found to be lethal. Moreover, our protein modelling approach using mutant protein revealed the presence of monomeric structure on contrary to the tetrameric structure of the wild type protein. In addition, in vitro functional characterization of mutant p.Y259C expressed in HEK293 cells showed a significant reduction in CTSC activity (0.015 ± 0.009 mU/ml) when compared with wild type protein (0.21 ± 0.008 mU/ml). Thus, in this study, we have demonstrated that the pathogenic missense mutant p.Y259C might cause PLS by impaired CTSC function.