Three Severe Cases of EBS Dowling-Meara Caused by Missense and Frameshift Mutations in the Keratin 14 Gene.

We report three unrelated patients affected at birth with an unusually severe form of epidermolysis bullosa simplex Dowling-Meara type (EBS-DM) because of mutations in KRT14 encoding keratin 14. Two patients were heterozygous for the previously described p.M119T mutation. The third patient was heterozygous for a novel c.1246delC mutation predicting the replacement of the helix termination peptide and the tail domain by a 25 amino-acid aberrant carboxyterminal sequence. At age 2 years, patients carrying the p.M119T mutation still suffered from severe EBS-DM, whereas the patient harboring the c.1246delC mutation has improved over time. These cases illustrate genotype–phenotype correlations and have implications for genetic counselling of EBS.Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2006) 126, 773–776. doi:10.1038/sj.jid.5700154; published online 26 January 2006 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]