Abstract
BACKGROUND: Central precocious puberty (CPP) is a precocious puberty due to premature activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis (HPG). MKRN3 defects are well-known causes of CPP, while DLK1 mutations were recently identified in a few patients with CPP. METHODS: The study was approved by the Institutional Review and the scientific committee of the hospital. The clinical data were collected. Whole-exome sequencing (WES) was performed to detect causative variants. Key words 'DLK1', 'MKRN3', and "central precocious puberty" were used for literature search in PubMed, Google Scholar, HGMD, and OMIM databases. RESULTS: The patient, a male, whose puberty began before age nine, had significant metabolic abnormalities including overweight, hyperlipidemia, and hyperuricemia. WES detected a recurrent frame-shift mutation, NM_003836.5:c.479delC(p.P160fs*50) in DLK1 in the patient and his father. CONCLUSION: The familial DLK1-CPP was identified in China for the first time, which supported that short stature is predicted in patients with CPP without GnRHa treatment. Therefore, we recommend that children with DLK1-CPP should be treated as early as possible to improve adult height. The patient in this study had persistent hyperuricemia, further suggests that this antiadipogenic factor represents a link between reproduction and metabolism.