Beneficial effect of ursodeoxycholic acid in patients with acyl-CoA oxidase 2 (ACOX2) deficiency-associated hypertransaminasemia

Abstract

Background and Aims: A variant (p.Arg225Trp) of peroxisomal acyl-CoA oxidase 2 (ACOX2), involved in bile acid (BA) side-chain shortening, has been associated with unexplained persistent hypertransaminasemia and accumu-lation of C27-BAs, mainly 3α,7α,12α- trihydroxy- 5β- cholestanoic acid (THCA). We aimed to investigate the prevalence of ACOX2 deficiency-associated hy-pertransaminasemia (ADAH), its response to ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), elucidate its pathophysiological mechanism and identify other inborn errors that could cause this alteration.Methods and Results: Among 33 patients with unexplained hypertransami-nasemia from 11 hospitals and 13 of their relatives, seven individuals with abnormally high C27-BA levels (>50% of total BAs) were identified by high- performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The p.Arg225Trp variant was found in homozygosity (exon amplification/sequencing) in two patients and three family members. Two additional nonrelated patients were heterozygous carriers of different alleles: c.673C>T (p.Arg225Trp) and c.456_459del (p.Thr154fs). In patients with ADAH, impaired liver expression of ACOX2, but not ACOX3, was found (immunohistochemistry). Treatment with UDCA normalized aminotransferase levels. Incubation of HuH-7 hepatoma cells with THCA, which was efficiently taken up, but not through BA transport-ers, increased reactive oxygen species production (flow cytometry), endo-plasmic reticulum stress biomarkers (GRP78, CHOP, and XBP1- S/ XBP1- Uratio), and BAXα expression (reverse transcription followed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and immunoblot), whereas cell viability was de-creased (tetrazolium salt-based cell viability test). THCA-induced cell toxicity was higher than that of major C24-BAs and was not prevented by UDCA. Fourteen predicted ACOX2 variants were generated (site-directed mutagen-esis) and expressed in HuH-7 cells. Functional tests to determine their ability to metabolize THCA identified six with the potential to cause ADAH.Conclusions: Dysfunctional ACOX2 has been found in several patients with unexplained hypertransaminasemia. This condition can be accurately identi-fied by a noninvasive diagnostic strategy based on plasma BA profiling and ACOX2 sequencing. Moreover, UDCA treatment can efficiently attenuate liver damage in these patients.