Van der Woude syndrome (VWS) is an autosomal dominant inherited disease characterized by lower lip pits, cleft lip and/or cleft palate. Missense, nonsense and frameshift mutations in IRF6 have been revealed to be responsible for VWS in European, Asian, North American and Brazilian populations. However, the mutations responsible for VWS have not been studied in Central American populations. Here, we investigated the role of IRF6 in patients with VWS in a previously unstudied Honduran population. IRF6 mutations were identified in four out of five VWS families examined, which strongly suggests that mutations in IRF6 are responsible for VWS in this population. We reported three novel mutations and one previously described mutation. In the first family, a mother and daughter both exhibited a p.N88I mutation in the DNA-binding region of IRF6 that was not present in unaffected family members. In the second, we found a unique p.K101QfsX15 mutation in the affected patient, leading to a frameshift and early stop codon. In the third, we identified a p.Q208X mutation occurring in exon 6. In the fourth, we found a nonsense mutation in exon 9 (p.R412X), previously described in Brazilian and Northern European populations. In the fifth, we did not identify any unique exonic missense, nonsense or frameshift mutations. This study reports the first cases of IRF6 mutations in VWS patients in a Central American population, further confirming that the causal link between IRF6 and VWS is consistent across multiple populations.

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