High prevalence of a novel mutation (2268 insT) of the thyroid peroxidase gene in Taiwanese patients with total iodide organification defect, and evidence for a founder effect.

The mutation of the thyroid peroxidase (TPO) gene that causes the total iodide organification defect (TIOD) is a common and severe condition leading to dyshormonogenesis of the thyroid gland in Caucasians. However, the role of TIOD in Chinese patients with thyroid dyshormonogenesis is unknown. In this study we followed 16 patients from 16 unrelated families in Taiwan and performed perchlorate discharge examination. Seven patients had TIOD and 2 had the partial iodine organification defect (PIOD) among the 16 families. These 9 patients underwent screening in search of TPO gene mutations. Three new mutations (2268 insT, 2243 delT, and G157C) were detected in the 7 patients with TIOD, whereas no mutation in the TPO gene was found in the 2 patients with PIOD. The 2268 insT mutation was noted to be the most common among these TIOD patients (12 of 14 studied alleles, 86%). With 3 intragenic polymorphic markers, we found that the alleles carrying the 2268 insT mutation in Taiwan Chinese TIOD patients were tightly linked to a specific haplotype. The allele frequencies of this haplotype in the 8 patients with homozygous 2268 insT (5 unrelated families, 10 studied alleles) and in 49 normal individuals (98 studied alleles) were 1.00 and 0.02, respectively (P < 0.0001). This indicates that this common novel mutation among Taiwanese patients with TIOD is due to a founder effect.