Although the mutation of the RDH5 gene has been known as a causative gene of fundus albipunctatus, the Gly35Ser mutation in the RDH5 gene may be related to the pathogenesis of progressive retinal degeneration.
To analyze the RDH5 gene in patients with fundus albipunctatus with and without cone dystrophy and to determine whether the disease is stationary or progressive and whether the cone dystrophy is a part of fundus albipunctatus or a separate disease.
Our results suggest that mutant alleles in RDH5 are a cause of fundus albipunctatus, a rare form of stationary night blindness characterized by a delay in the regeneration of cone and rod photopigments.
Only 2 (4% [CI, 0.01% to 15%]) had evidence of the phenotypes predicted by an MDR result (fundus albipunctatus due to RDH5 and variegate porphyria due to PPOX).
The authors screened two index patients diagnosed with fundus albipunctatus for mutations in exons 2 to 5 and exon/intron boundaries of the 11-cis retinol dehydrogenase gene by direct sequencing.
This study is a brief review of the literature on FA and a report of the first molecular evidence for RDH5 gene mutation in a Polish patient with this rare disorder.
These findings strongly implicate defects of RDH5 as the cause of fundus albipunctatus and point to a heterogeneity of RDH5 mutations in this form of congenital stationary night blindness with variable expressivity.
We identified two novel disease-causing RDH5 mutations in Pakistani families with FA, which will improve diagnosis and genetic counseling, and may even lead to treatment of this disease in these families.
Mutations in the RLBP1 gene encoding the cellular retinaldehyde-binding protein (CRALBP) cause autosomal recessive progressive retinopathy, such as retinitis punctata albescens (RPA), Bothnia-type dystrophy (BD), Newfoundland rod-cone dystrophy (NFRCD), retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and fundus albipunctatus (FA).