2001 Volume 40 Issue 4 Pages 336-340
Alpha-1-antitrypsin (α1AT) deficiency is extremely rare among Orientals. We treated a 37-year-old man with severe pulmonary emphysema associated with a low serum concentration of α1AT. Mutation analysis of the α1AT gene was performed using a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction followed by sequencing. The patient proved to be a compound heterozygote carrying a Siiyama deficient allele and a QOclayton null allele. This is the first Japanese case of α1AT deficiency to arise from such compound heterozygosity in a family with no apparent consanguineous marriage, suggesting that the gene frequency for deficient alleles might be somewhat higher than previously estimated.
(Internal Medicine 40: 336-340, 2001)
