Introduction:

Thrombocytopenia with absent radii is a rare genetic syndrome, characterized by bilateral absence of the radii with the presence of both thumbs and thrombocytopenia. In addition, malformations may be present, involving the lower limbs, as well as the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, neurological, and vascular systems.

Objective:

To analyze the most recent molecular genetic aspects of thrombocytopenia syndrome.

Methods:

A review of the literature in English and in Spanish was carried out, in the PubMed website and using the search engine of Google Scholar, for articles published in the last ten years. We performed analysis and summary of the reviewed bibliography.

Information analysis and synthesis:

The disease has an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern, a heterozygote composed of a null allele of the RBM8A gene, located at the 1q21.1 locus and the presence of a single nucleotide polymorphism in non-coding regions in the other allele. This gene encodes the Y14 protein, which is one of the four components of the exon-binding complex, a multiprotein complex that binds to mRNA and that, once splicing is complete, intervenes in the efficiency of translation and degradation of mRNA that have premature termination condons.

Conclusions:

Thrombocytopenia is the first disease in humans in which a defect in a subunit of the exon binding complex was described. Despite the advance in recent years in understanding the molecular basis of the disease, new research is still necessary to explain the relationship between the RBM8 gene and skeletal manifestations.

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