ClinVar

Description

This sequence change replaces cysteine, which is neutral and slightly polar, with tyrosine, which is neutral and polar, at codon 155 of the LDLR protein (p.Cys155Tyr). This variant is not present in population databases (gnomAD no frequency). This missense change has been observed in individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia (PMID: 20809525, 36105085). ClinVar contains an entry for this variant (Variation ID: 251240). Advanced modeling of protein sequence and biophysical properties (such as structural, functional, and spatial information, amino acid conservation, physicochemical variation, residue mobility, and thermodynamic stability) performed at Invitae indicates that this missense variant is expected to disrupt LDLR protein function with a positive predictive value of 95%. Experimental studies have shown that this missense change affects LDLR function (PMID: 25378237). This variant affects a cysteine residue located within an LDLRA or epidermal-growth-factor (EGF)-like domains of the LDLR protein. Cysteine residues in these domains have been shown to be involved in the formation of disulfide bridges, which are critical for protein structure and stability (PMID: 7548065, 7603991, 7979249). In addition, missense substitutions within the LDLRA and EGF-like domains affecting cysteine residues are overrepresented among patients with hypercholesterolemia (PMID: 18325082). This variant disrupts the p.Cys155 amino acid residue in LDLR. Other variant(s) that disrupt this residue have been determined to be pathogenic (PMID: 9104431, 10735632, 14974088). This suggests that this residue is clinically significant, and that variants that disrupt this residue are likely to be disease-causing. For these reasons, this variant has been classified as Pathogenic.