ClinVar

Description

To our knowledge, the I178N variant has not been published as a pathogenic variant, nor has it been reported as a benign variant. It was not observed in approximately 6,500 individuals of European and African American ancestry in the NHLBI Exome Sequencing Project, indicating it is not a common benign variant in these populations. The I178N variant is a non-conservative amino acid substitution, which is likely to impact secondary protein structure as these residues differ in polarity, charge, size and/or other properties. This substitution occurs within a known mutational hotspot region (helix initiation motif) that is highly conserved across all species and among all members of the keratin family. It is well established that keratin gene mutations affecting the residues at the ends of the central rod domains of the keratin proteins (helix initiation and termination motifs) interfere with proper keratin intermediate filament assembly and function, resulting in hyperkeratosis (Chamcheu et al., 2011). Nevertheless, since only a single pathogenic change in KRT6B has been reported to affect the helix initiation motif, we consider the I178N variant as likely pathogenic