Diffuse abnormal layering of small intestinal smooth muscle is present in patients with FLNA mutations and x-linked intestinal pseudo-obstruction.

X-linked intestinal pseudo-obstruction, a rare disorder caused by mutations in FLNA, the gene encoding the cytoskeletal protein filamin A, has been regarded as a hereditary enteric neuropathy largely on the basis of sparse and incomplete pathologic studies. Diffuse abnormal layering of small intestinal smooth muscle (DAL) is a rare malformation, which has only been described in 4 patients (all male, 3 in the same family) with intestinal pseudo-obstruction. We report DAL in 5 male patients (2 families) with intestinal pseudo-obstruction and mutations in FLNA. Light microscopic, ultrastructural, and immunohistochemical studies showed abnormal lamination of the small intestinal muscularis propria with associated absent or severely reduced FLNA immunoreactivity. Intestinal samples from the oldest patient in the series, a teenager, showed multinucleate myocytes in small and large intestine, along the submucosal surface of the muscularis propria. As neither DAL nor the pattern of myocyte multinucleation observed in our patients have been described outside the context of X-linked intestinal pseudo-obstruction, these histopathologic features may be specific for this hereditary disorder and suggest an underlying myopathic basis for dysmotility in affected patients.