Rab38 Mutation and the Lung Phenotype

Rab38 is highly expressed in alveolar type II cells, melanocytes, and platelets. These cells are specifically-differentiated cells and contain characteristic intracellular organelles called lysosome-related organelles, i.e., lamellar bodies in alveolar type II cells, melanosomes in melanocytes, and dense granules in platelets. There are Rab38-mutant rodents, i.e., chocolate mice and Ruby rats. While chocolate mice only show oculocutaneous albinism, Ruby rats show oculocutaneous albinism and prolonged bleeding time and, hence, are a rat model of Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS). Most patients with HPS suffer from fatal interstitial pneumonia by middle age. The lungs of both chocolate mice and Ruby rats show remarkably increased amounts of lung surfactant and conspicuously enlarged lysosome-related organelles, i.e., lamellar bodies, which are also characteristic of the lungs in human HPS. There are 16 mutant HPS-mouse strains, of which ten mutant genes have been identified to be causative in patients with HPS thus far. The gene products of eight of the ten genes constitute one of the three protein complexes, i.e., biogenesis of lysosome-related organelle complex-1, -2, -3 (BLOC-1, -2, -3). Patients with HPS of the mutant BLOC-3 genotype develop interstitial pneumonia. Recently, BLOC-3 has been elucidated to be a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for Rab38. Growing evidence suggests that Rab38 is an additional candidate gene of human HPS that displays the lung phenotype.