A Sri Lankan family with cerebellar hemangioblastoma due to a heterozygous nonsense mutation in the von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor, E3 ubiquitin protein ligase (VHL) gene

Mutations in the von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor, E3 ubiquitin protein ligase (VHL) gene cause a variety of phenotypes including von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease. This report describes a Sri Lankan family with three siblings with cerebellar haemangioblastoma due to a nonsense mutation in the VHL gene. A heterozygous nucleotide substitution in exon 3 was identified in all three siblings resulting in a stop codon at amino acid position 175 leading to a truncated non-functional VHL protein[NM_000551.3(VHL):c.525C>G;p.Tyr175Ter;rs5030835C>G]. Patients with rare tumours characteristic of VHL should undergo clinical and genetic evaluation for VHL.

The Sri Lanka Journal of Surgery 2015; 33(1): 30-32