A 33-year-old woman presented with a productive cough from childhood. She had suffered from repeated bacterial pneumonia. Her clinical and imaging findings revealed chronic sinusitis, bronchiectasis and situs inversus. We suspected primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) and performed a bronchial mucosal biopsy. The ciliary beat pattern according to high-speed video microscopy was complete loss. Electron microscopic findings of cilia showed defect of outer dynein arm (ODA). A genetic examination detected compound heterozygous mutations of DNAH5 that encode ODA components. There are few reports of genetic mutation analyses in Japanese PCD patients. We herein report a PCD patient with DNAH5 mutations and review the related literature.
Keywords: DNAH5; gene; outer dynein arm; primary ciliary dyskinesia.