J Genet Med.  2019 Dec;16(2):67-70. 10.5734/JGM.2019.16.2.67.

A familial case of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy with CAV3 mutation

• Lee S
• Jang S
• Shim Y
• Kim WJ
• Kim SY
• Cho A
• Kim H
• Kim JI
• Lim BC
• Hwang H
• Choi J
• Kim KJ
• Chae JH

• KMID: 2470100
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5734/JGM.2019.16.2.67

Abstract

Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) is a group of muscular dystrophies that has extremely heterogeneous clinical features and genetic background. The caveolin-3 gene (CAV3) is one of the causative genes. LGMD appears as a clinical continuum, from isolated skeletal muscle involvement to long QT syndrome. Here we report two patients without apparent muscle weakness in a family with CAV3 mutation. A 7-month-old Korean boy visited our muscle clinic because of an incidental finding of elevated serum creatine kinase (CK) concentration (680 IU/L, reference range, 20-270 IU/L) without clinical symptoms. The patient was born after an uneventful pregnancy and showed normal developmental milestones. He developed pseudohypertrophy of his calf muscle during the follow-up. We obtained a muscle biopsy at age 14 months, which showed size variations and degenerating/regenerating myofibers with endomysial fibrosis and immunohistochemical evidence of normal dystrophin. Under the impression of LGMD, we performed target panel sequencing and identified a heterozygous in-frame mutation of CAV3, c.307_312delGTGGTG (p.Val103_Val104del). Immunohistochemical staining of muscle indicated complete loss of caveolin-3 compared with normal control muscle, which supported the variant's pathogenicity. We performed segregation analysis and found that the patient's mother had the same variant with elevated serum CK level (972 IU/L). We report on autosomal dominant familial caveolinopathy caused by a pathogenic variant in CAV3, which was asymptomatic until the fourth decade. This case highlights the utility of next generation sequencing in the diagnosis of muscular dystrophies and the additive role of muscle biopsy to confirm the variants.

Keyword

Muscular dystrophies; limb-girdle; Caveolin 3; High-throughput nucleotide sequencing; Creatine kinase

MeSH Terms

Biopsy
Caveolin 3
Creatine Kinase
Diagnosis
Dystrophin
Fibrosis
Follow-Up Studies
Genetic Background
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
Humans
Incidental Findings
Infant
Long QT Syndrome
Male
Mothers
Muscle Weakness
Muscle, Skeletal
Muscular Dystrophies
Muscular Dystrophies, Limb-Girdle*
Pregnancy
Reference Values
Virulence
Caveolin 3
Creatine Kinase
Dystrophin