The allele MICB 0050204, over-represented in the Caucasian population, has an additional exon resulting from a new splice junction sequence.

We report that the allele MICB 0050204(1) allele, present in the majority of the Spanish population (70% of healthy controls) is characterized by the presence of an extra exon found between the sequence corresponding to exon 1 and 2. This is generated by a dinucleotide polymorphism in the first MICB intron that introduces a new splice junction, which can generate, by alternative splicing, transcripts with an additional exon. This new exon contains a premature stop codon and therefore the transcript does not produce a functional protein.