Identification of four novel connexin 26 mutations in non-syndromic deaf patients: Genotype-phenotype analysis in moderate cases

This paper presents a mutation as well as a genotype-phenotype analysis of the GJB2 and GJB6 genes in 476 samples from non-syndromic unrelated Argentinean deaf patients (104 familial and 372 sporadic cases). Most of them were of prelingual onset (82 %) and 27 % were cochlear implanted. Variation of sequences was detected in 171 of the 474 patients (36 %). Overall, 43 different sequence variations were identified in GJB2 and GJB6. Four of them are reported for the first time in GJB2: c.233dupG, p.Ala78Ser, p.Val190Asp and p.Cys211Tyr. Mutations in GJB6 were detected in 3 % of patients [nine del(GJB6-D13S1830) and three del(GJB6-D13S1854)]. Of the 43 different variations identified in GJB2, 6 were polymorphisms and of the others, 10 (27 %) were truncating and 27 (73 %) were nontruncating. Patients with two truncating mutations had significantly worse hearing impairment than all other groups. Moderate phenotypes were observed in a group of patients carrying biallelic mutations (23 %). This work shows the high prevalence of GJB2 mutations in the Argentinean population and presents an analysis of moderate phenotypes in our cohort.