A nonsense mutation causes human hereditary congenital goiter with preferential production of a 171-nucleotide-deleted thyroglobulin ribonucleic acid messenger.

Defective or impaired thyroglobulin (Tg) synthesis usually results in congenital goitrous hypothyroidism, virtual absence of Tg in thyroid tissue, and the presence of an elevated concentration of iodoalbumin. The final result of these abnormalities is a decreased rate of T3 and T4 synthesis. We have previously reported two siblings with this syndrome that was attributable to decreased levels of thyroid tissue Tg mRNA, resulting in decreased translation of a fully mature Tg. Further molecular studies in this family are the subject of this report. The Tg mRNA from normal and goitrous thyroid tissue was first reverse transcribed and divided into five overlapping portions from positions 57-8448, and the resulting cDNAs were amplified by polymerase chain reaction and analyzed by agarose gel electrophoresis. The amplification of nucleotides (nt) 4502-5184 from control thyroid tissue Tg mRNA showed a predominant fragment of 683 basepairs (bp) and a minor fragment of 512 bp. This latter fragment contained a 171-nt deletion that mapped between positions 4567 and 4737 of the Tg mRNA. In contrast, the fragment predominantly present in the congenital goiter was 512 bp. The sequencing of the 683-bp fragment revealed that the responsible mutation is a cytosine to thymine transition, creating a stop codon at position 1510. This results in loss of a TaqI restriction site. The point mutation is, thus, removed from a portion of the transcripts by the preferential accumulation in the goiter of a 171-nt-deleted Tg mRNA. The reading frame is maintained and is potentially fully translatable into a Tg polypeptide chain shorter by 57 residues. The presence of the deleted Tg mRNA in normal thyroid tissue, albeit at a low level, strongly suggests that the deleted mRNA sequence corresponds to a complete exon. Our studies suggest that the shorter, alternatively spliced Tg mRNA predominates in the goitrous tissue and probably has a shorter half-life. This would explain the tissue's low Tg mRNA levels, previously reported. Moreover, translation of the mutated transcript would generate a severely truncated Tg polypeptide with limited ability to generate thyroid hormone, resulting in congenital goitrous hypothyroidism.