Three novel small (1–2 nucleotides) frame-shift insertion mutations were found in three families in which the index patients were males with complete NDI. All of these mutations are expected to introduce a premature stop codon, and the mutations were conserved within the families (Table 3). Frequency of symptomatic carriers of AVPR2 mutations Carriers of disease-causing

mutations of AVPR2 (females having heterozygous mutations) sometimes manifest NDI symptoms [22, 23]; however, it is unknown how often this event occurs. In our present study, in 52 NDI families with AVPR2 mutations, at least one female member (usually a mother of an affected boy) were genetically learn more analyzed and found to have the disease-causing VRT752271 allele. In a total of 64 such female subjects, 16 (25 %) had symptoms of polyuria and polydipsia, while 43 (67 %) were asymptomatic. Among the 16 symptomatic female subjects, 4 were diagnosed as having complete NDI, and 3 were the probands in each family. The types of mutations identified in these symptomatic carriers were: missense mutations (8), deletion mutations (6), nonsense mutation (1), and insertion mutation Selleckchem CYT387 (1), indicating

that this event occurs in any type of mutation. The mechanism for the appearance of NDI symptoms in female carriers is explained by an extremely skewed inactivation of the normal allele of the X chromosome [24]; the frequency of this event was estimated to be very rare [9]. However, a recent study by Sato et al. [25] showed that a moderately skewed inactivation of the normal allele is enough to cause NDI symptoms. This result implies that symptomatic female carriers occur more often than previously thought. Our data are consistent with this speculation, ifenprodil and show that one fourth of carriers of AVPR2 disease-causing mutations present NDI symptoms. Thus, female patients with NDI symptoms require a careful examination, and gene mutation analysis for AVPR2 should be considered if other causes are unlikely. AQP2 mutations causing NDI Nine AQP2

mutations were identified in 9 NDI families (Table 4). The results from 3 of these families were previously reported [12]. These three families had monoallelic frame-shift deletion mutations (1–10 nucleotides) in the C-terminus of AQP2 (different mutations in each family), and showed an autosomal dominant inheritance with a slightly milder form of NDI [12]. The remaining six families were newly analyzed in the present study, and 6 different NDI-causing mutations were found (Table 4). These mutations consisted of 3 missense mutations and 3 deletion mutations (1–2 nucleotides deletions); 3 of them were novel mutations, and other three were recurrences of previously known mutations. Two missense mutations and one deletion mutation showed a recessive inheritance mode, while one missense mutation and two small deletion mutations manifested a dominant inheritance mode.