Prediction of the damage-associated non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms in the human MC1R gene

Abstract

The melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) is involved in the control of melanogenesis. Polymorphisms in this gene have been associated with variation in skin and hair color and with elevated risk for the development of melanoma. Here we used 11 computational tools based on different approaches to predict the damage-associated non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) in the coding region of the human MC1R gene. Among the 92 nsSNPs arranged according to the predictions 62% were classified as damaging in more than five tools. The classification was significantly correlated with the scores of two consensus programs. Alleles associated with the red hair color (RHC) phenotype and with the risk of melanoma were examined. The R variants D84E, R142H, R151C, I155T, R160W and D294H were classified as damaging by the majority of the tools while the r variants V60L, V92M and R163Q have been predicted as neutral in most of the programs The combination of the prediction tools results in 14 nsSNPs indicated as the most damaging mutations in MC1R (L48P, R67W, H70Y, P72L, S83P, R151H, S172I, L206P, T242I, G255R, P256S, C273Y, C289R and R306H); C273Y showed to be highly damaging in SIFT, Polyphen-2, MutPred, PANTHER and PROVEAN scores. The computational analysis proved capable of identifying the potentially damaging nsSNPs in MC1R, which are candidates for further laboratory studies of the functional and pharmacological significance of the alterations in the receptor and the phenotypic outcomes.

Fig 1. Prediction results of the 92 nsSNPs in the MC1R gene analyzed by the 11 tools.

The different categorical classifications of the 11 tools are showed.

Fig 2. Distribution of the count of damage results of the 11 tools in the nsSNPs in MC1R gene.

Fig 3. Two-dimensional structure of the MC1R protein according to the reference sequence of the MC1R gene (NP_002377).

One letter amino acid code is used. The 92 nsSNPs analyzed are colored in relation to the count of damage results in the 11 tools (legend). The RHC associated mutations are indicated by the arrows. TM: transmembrane domains.