Identification of novel OCRL isoforms associated with phenotypic differences between Dent disease-2 and Lowe syndrome

BACKGROUND

Although Lowe syndrome and Dent disease-2 are both caused by OCRL mutations, their clinical severities differ substantially, and their molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Truncating mutations in OCRL exons 1 through 7 lead to Dent disease-2, whereas those in exons 8 through 24 lead to Lowe syndrome. Herein, we identified the mechanism underlying the action of novel OCRL protein isoforms.

METHODS

mRNA samples extracted from cultured urine-derived cells from a healthy control and the Dent disease-2 patient were examined to detect the 5' end of the OCRL isoform. For protein expression and functional analysis, vectors containing (1) the full-length OCRL transcripts, (2) the isoform transcripts, and (3) transcripts with truncating mutations detected in Lowe syndrome and Dent disease-2 patients were transfected into HeLa cells.

RESULTS

We successfully cloned the novel isoform transcripts from OCRL exons 6-24, including the translation-initiation codons present in exon 8. In vitro protein-expression analysis detected proteins of two different sizes (105 and 80 kDa) translated from full-length OCRL, whereas only one protein (80 kDa) was found from the isoform and Dent disease-2 variants. No protein expression was observed for the Lowe syndrome variants. The isoform enzyme activity was equivalent to that of full-length OCRL; the Dent disease-2 variants retained > 50% enzyme activity, whereas the Lowe syndrome variants retained < 20% activity.

CONCLUSIONS

We elucidated the molecular mechanism underlying the two different phenotypes in OCRL-related diseases; the functional OCRL isoform translated starting at exon 8 was associated with this mechanism.