Transferrin receptor mutation analysis in hereditary hemochromatosis patients

The Cys282-->Tyr mutation in the HFE gene is carried by the majority of hereditary hemochromatosis patient chromosomes, yet some patients do not seem to harbor any mutation in this gene. This suggests a possibility that these patients may have a mutation in other genes in the same pathway as HFE. We analyzed the cDNA sequences of transferrin receptor (TFR), which was recently shown to interact with HFE, in twenty-one hereditary hemochromatosis patients including sixteen individuals who did not carry a Cys282-->Tyr mutation. A nucleotide substitution (424A-->G), which resulted in the Ser142-->Gly amino acid substitution, was the only amino acid polymorphism detected in the open reading frame of the TFR gene in these patients. This amino acid substitution was a rather common polymorphism in the general population (49%) and its frequency did not significantly differ in the hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) patients regardless of the HFE genotype. Thus, amino acid changes to the TFR gene do not appear to play a role in HH even when the patients do nor have a HFE mutation. However, this study does not rule out the possibility of the involvement of mutations in non-coding regions.