Mutations of the SLX4 gene in Fanconi anemia

Fanconi anemia is a rare recessive disorder characterized by genome instability, congenital malformations, progressive bone marrow failure and predisposition to hematologic malignancies and solid tumors(1). At the cellular level, hypersensitivity to DNA interstrand crosslinks is the defining feature in Fanconi anemia(2). Mutations in thirteen distinct Fanconi anemia genes(3) have been shown to interfere with the DNA-replication-dependent repair of lesions involving crosslinked DNA at stalled replication forks(4). Depletion of SLX4, which interacts with multiple nucleases and has been recently identified as a Holliday junction resolvase(5-7), results in increased sensitivity of the cells to DNA crosslinking agents. Here we report the identification of biallelic SLX4 mutations in two individuals with typical clinical features of Fanconi anemia and show that the cellular defects in these individuals' cells are complemented by wildtype SLX4, demonstrating that biallelic mutations in SLX4 (renamed here as FANCP) cause a new subtype of Fanconi anemia, Fanconi anemia-P.