Acute intermittent porphyria (AIP) is an inherited disorder characterized by a deficiency of hydroxymethylbilane synthase (EC 4.3.1.8.; HMBS), the third enzyme in the heme biosynthetic pathway. To date, 113 different HMBS gene mutations have been reported in the world. However, there were a few reports of the gene mutations in the Japanese AIP patients. We studied the gene mutation in two unrelated AIP families in the San-in district, a local area of Western Japan. The overlapping 6 fragments of the HMBS gene, amplified by the reverse transcript-polymerase chain reaction, were analyzed by the single-strand conformation polymorphism with silver staining technique. The abnormal fragment from a member of one family was sequenced to detect the C to T substitution at 517 nucleic acid position of cDNA, which led to a missense mutation of arginine to tryptophan exchange at an amino acid level (R173W). This mutation located in exon 10 created a new site of the MSP 1 restriction endonuclease and was screened by the amplified fragment of exon 10 from genomic DNA with the MSP 1 digestion. The mutation was detected totally in three members of the family and interestingly also in two patients of an unrelated family. This mutation has been reported widely in the world independently, such as in a Swedish, a Canadian, a Finnish, and a French family, but is the first in Japanese patients. The screening method for this mutation is useful for diagnosis in Japanese AIP patients.