What causes Dubin-Johnson syndrome?

What causes Dubin-Johnson syndrome?

A mutation of the ABCC2 gene causes Dubin-Johnson syndrome. The ABCC2 gene is responsible for making a protein that removes waste from cells, specifically, it removes bilirubin (a yellow substance made up of the remains of red blood cells at the end of a cell’s lifecycle) from cells in your liver and moves it as bile (digestive fluid).

If you have Dubin-Johnson syndrome, your body can’t remove the bilirubin waste from cells. This causes substances like bilirubin to collect in your body (hyperbilirubinemia), which causes symptoms, like jaundice, to appear.