Here we report on four middle-aged, newly diagnosed Japanese XPA patients whose unusually mild symptoms, especially those affecting the skin, implicate a reduced association of a subtle defect in the C-terminus of XPA protein with skin lesions.
Immunoblot analysis of XPA proteins revealed that a typical group-A XP patient showed no XPA protein band, while a smaller, truncated XPA protein, which appears to be responsible for mid skin lesions and minimal neurological abnormalities, was detected in cells from three atypical group-A XP patients.