You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
PostScript
Letter
Somatic loss of polycystic disease genes contributes to the formation of isolated and polycystic liver cysts
  1. Manoe J Janssen1,
  2. Jody Salomon1,
  3. Wybrich R Cnossen1,
  4. Carsten Bergmann2,3,
  5. Rolph Pfundt4,
  6. Joost P H Drenth1
  1. 1 Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Radboudumc, Institute for Genetic and Metabolic Diseases, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  2. 2 Department of Bioscientia, Center for Human Genetics, Ingelheim, Germany
  3. 3 Renal Division, Department of Medicine, University Freiburg Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany
  4. 4 Department of Human Genetics, Radboudumc, Institute for Genetic and Metabolic Diseases, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  1. Correspondence to Professor Joost P H Drenth, Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Radboudumc, Institute for Genetic and Metabolic Diseases, P.O. Box 9101, code 455, Nijmegen 6500hb, The Netherlands; joostphdrenth{at}cs.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2014-308062

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    We read with interest the paper by Urribarri et al 1 which describes that metalloprotease hyperactivity plays an important role in cyst expansion and that metalloprotease inhibition reduces cyst proliferation. As such, these results help to identify potential drug targets.2 We hypothesise that the expansion and maintenance of the cyst is preceded by mutational events that trigger cytogenesis, and we used genetic analysis to provide additional insight into this process. The majority of polycystic diseases are autosomal dominant disorders where every patient cell possesses one germ line mutation (first hit).3 As somatic second-hit mutations play an important role in liver and renal cyst formation,4–6 it was hypothesised that patients with polycystic disease have a DNA repair defect and accumulate somatic mutations.7 This was supported by a comparative genomic hybridisation study where renal cysts harboured multiple chromosomal aberrations, similar to cancers.8 ,9 In addition, patients without a germ line mutation can still develop …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors MJJ: Study concept and design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, statistical analysis and drafting and revising of the manuscript. JS: Acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, technical support and revising the draft paper. CB: Acquisition of data, technical support and revising the draft paper. RP: Acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content, technical and material support. JPHD: Study concept and design, critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content, obtained funding and supervised the study.

    • Funding Funding for this study was provided by the Institute for Genetic and Metabolic Diseases (Radboudumc).

    • Competing interests CB is an employee of Bioscientia/Sonic Healthcare.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval Commissie Mensgebonden Onderzoek (CMO) regio Arnhem-Nijmegen.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.