Whole-exome sequencing and functional studies identify RPS29 as a novel gene mutated in multicase Diamond-Blackfan anemia families

Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) is a cancer-prone inherited bone marrow failure syndrome. Approximately half of DBA patients have a germ-line mutation in a ribosomal protein gene. We used whole-exome sequencing to identify disease-causing genes in 2 large DBA families. After filtering, 1 nonsynonymous mutation (p.I31F) in the ribosomal protein S29 (RPS29[AUQ1]) gene was present in all 5 DBA-affected individuals and the obligate carrier, and absent from the unaffected noncarrier parent in 1 DBA family. A second DBA family was found to have a different nonsynonymous mutation (p.I50T) in RPS29. Both mutations are amino acid substitutions in exon 2 predicted to be deleterious and resulted in haploinsufficiency of RPS29 expression compared with wild-type RPS29 expression from an unaffected control. The DBA proband with the p.I31F RPS29 mutation had a pre–ribosomal RNA (rRNA) processing defect compared with the healthy control. We demonstrated that both RPS29 mutations failed to rescue the defective erythropoiesis in the rps29−/− mutant zebra fish DBA model. RPS29 is a component of the small 40S ribosomal subunit and essential for rRNA processing and ribosome biogenesis. We uncovered a novel DBA causative gene, RPS29, and showed that germ-line mutations in RPS29 can cause a defective erythropoiesis phenotype using a zebra fish model.