FBN1 mutations largely contribute to sporadic non-syndromic aortic dissection

Mutations in FBN1 have been well identified in syndromic aortic dissection (AD) and familial thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections. However, whether mutations of FBN1 contribute to sporadic non-syndromic AD and the characteristics of mutations remain unknown. Using next-generation-sequencing technology, FBN1 was sequenced in a total of 702 sporadic cases (including 687 of non-syndromic AD and 15 of sporadic Marfan syndrome with aortic event, and 527 normal controls). For the sporadic non-syndromic AD cohort, we found 26 variants in 27 patients (18 with missense, 2 frameshift, 1 initiation codon mutation, 3 nonsense and 3 splice site mutations). The prevalence of variants was significantly high in the sporadic non-syndromic AD cohort (27/687, 3.9%). The patients with FBN1 mutations were younger, suffered from fewer risk factors such as hypertension and smoking, and were less gender partitioned than non-FBN1-mutation AD patients. The mutations were spread along the FBN1 gene in our sporadic non-syndromic AD cohort and mutation locations are not different between non-syndromic and syndromic patients. These results demonstrate that the deleterious mutations in FBN1 largely contribute to pathogenesis of sporadic non-syndromic AD, which expands our knowledge of FBN1 variants and the genetic basis and pathology of AD.