A homozygous structural variant of RPGRIP1 is frequently associated with achromatopsia in Japanese patients with IRD

Purpose: Achromatopsia (ACHM) is an early-onset cone dysfunction caused by 5 genes with cone-specific functions (CNGA3, CNGB3, GNAT2, PDE6C, and PDE6H) and by ATF6, a transcription factor with ubiquitous expression. To improve the relatively low variant detection ratio in these genes in a cohort of exome-sequenced Japanese patients with inherited retinal diseases (IRD), we performed genome sequencing to detect structural variants and intronic variants in patients with ACHM.

Methods: Genome sequencing of 10 ACHM pedigrees was performed after exome sequencing. Structural, non-coding, and coding variants were filtered based on segregation between the affected and unaffected in each pedigree. Variant frequency and predicted damage scores were considered in identifying pathogenic variants.

Results: A homozygous deletion involving exon 18 of RPGRIP1 was detected in 5 of 10 ACHM probands, and variant inheritance from each parent was confirmed. This deletion was relatively frequent (minor allele frequency = 0.0023) in the Japanese population but was only homozygous in patients with ACHM among the 199 Japanese IRD probands analyzed by the same genome sequencing pipeline.

Conclusion: The deletion involving exon 18 of RPGRIP1 is a prevalent cause of ACHM in Japanese patients and contributes to the wide spectrum of RPGRIP1-associated IRD phenotypes, from Leber congenital amaurosis to ACHM.