Compound Phenotype Due to Recessive Variants in LARP7 and OTOG Genes Disclosed by an Integrated Approach of SNP-Array and Whole Exome Sequencing (original) (raw)

Identification of genetic causes of congenital neurodevelopmental disorders using genome wide molecular technologies

Acta medica Lituanica, 2016

Background. Intellectual disability affects about 1-2% of the general population worldwide, and this is the leading socioeconomic problem of health care. The evaluation of the genetic causes of intellectual disability is challenging because these conditions are genetically heterogeneous with many different genetic alterations resulting in clinically indistinguishable phenotypes. Genome wide molecular technologies are effective in a research setting for establishing the new genetic basis of a disease. We describe the first Lithuanian experience in genome-wide CNV detection and whole exome sequencing, presenting the results obtained in the research project UNIGENE. Materials and methods. The patients with developmental delay/intellectual disability have been investigated (n = 66). Diagnostic screening was performed using array-CGH technology. FISH and real time-PCR were used for the confirmation of gene-dose imbalances and investigation of parental samples. Whole exome sequencing using the next generation high throughput NGS technique was used to sequence the samples of 12 selected families. Results. 14 out of 66 patients had pathogenic copy number variants, and one patient had novel likely pathogenic aberration (microdeletion at 4p15.2). Twelve families have been processed for whole exome sequencing. Two identified sequence variants could be classified as pathogenic (in MECP2, CREBBP genes). The other families had several candidate intellectual disability gene variants that are of unclear clinical significance and must be further investigated for possible effect on the molecular pathways of intellectual disability. Conclusions. The genetic heterogeneity of intellectual disability requires genome wide approaches, including detection of chromosomal aberrations by chromosomal microarrays and whole exome sequencing capable of uncovering single gene mutations. This study demonstrates the benefits and challenges that accompany the use of genome wide molecular technologies and provides genotype-phenotype information on 32 patients with chromosomal imbalances and ID candidate sequence variants.

De novo variants in neurodevelopmental disorders—experiences from a tertiary care center

Clinical Genetics

Up to 40% of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) such as intellectual disability, developmental delay, autism spectrum disorder, and developmental motor abnormalities have a documented underlying monogenic defect, primarily due to de novo variants. Still, the overall burden of de novo variants as well as novel disease genes in NDDs await discovery. We performed parent-offspring trio exome sequencing in 231 individuals with NDDs. Phenotypes were compiled using human phenotype ontology terms. The overall diagnostic yield was 49.8% (n = 115/231) with de novo variants contributing to more than 80% (n = 93/115) of all solved cases. De novo variants affected 72 different-mostly constrained-genes. In addition, we identified putative pathogenic variants in 16 genes not linked to NDDs to date. Reanalysis performed in 80 initially unsolved cases revealed a definitive diagnosis in two additional cases. Our study consolidates the contribution and genetic heterogeneity of de novo variants in NDDs highlighting trio exome sequencing as effective diagnostic tool for NDDs. Besides, we illustrate the potential of a trio-approach for candidate gene discovery and the power of systematic reanalysis of unsolved cases.

Rare Does Not Mean Worthless: How Rare Diseases Have Shaped Neurodevelopment Research in the NGS Era

Biomolecules

The advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) is heavily changing both the diagnosis of human conditions and basic biological research. It is now possible to dig deep inside the genome of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people and find both common and rare genomic variants and to perform detailed phenotypic characterizations of both physiological organs and experimental models. Recent years have seen the introduction of multiple techniques using NGS to profile transcription, DNA and chromatin modifications, protein binding, etc., that are now allowing us to profile cells in bulk or even at a single-cell level. Although rare and ultra-rare diseases only affect a few people, each of these diseases represent scholarly cases from which a great deal can be learned about the pathological and physiological function of genes, pathways, and mechanisms. Therefore, for rare diseases, state-of-the-art investigations using NGS have double valence: their genomic cause (new variants) an...

Large-scale discovery of novel genetic causes of developmental disorders

Nature, 2014

Despite three decades of successful, predominantly phenotype-driven discovery of the genetic causes of monogenic disorders, up to half of children with severe developmental disorders of probable genetic origin remain without a genetic diagnosis. Particularly challenging are those disorders rare enough to have eluded recognition as a discrete clinical entity, those with highly variable clinical manifestations, and those that are difficult to distinguish from other, very similar, disorders. Here we demonstrate the power of using an unbiased genotype-driven approach to identify subsets of patients with similar disorders. By studying 1,133 children with severe, undiagnosed developmental disorders, and their parents, using a combination of exome sequencing and array-based detection of chromosomal rearrangements, we discovered 12 novel genes associated with developmental disorders. These newly implicated genes increase by 10% (from 28% to 31%) the proportion of children that could be diag...

Essential genetic findings in neurodevelopmental disorders

Human Genomics, 2019

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) represent a growing medical challenge in modern societies. Ever-increasing sophisticated diagnostic tools have been continuously revealing a remarkably complex architecture that embraces genetic mutations of distinct types (chromosomal rearrangements, copy number variants, small indels, and nucleotide substitutions) with distinct frequencies in the population (common, rare, de novo). Such a network of interacting players creates difficulties in establishing rigorous genotype-phenotype correlations. Furthermore, individual lifestyles may also contribute to the severity of the symptoms fueling a large spectrum of gene-environment interactions that have a key role on the relationships between genotypes and phenotypes. Herein, a review of the genetic discoveries related to NDDs is presented with the aim to provide useful general information for the medical community.

Common genetic variants contribute to risk of rare severe neurodevelopmental disorders

Nature, 2018

There are thousands of rare human disorders that are caused by single deleterious, protein-coding genetic variants. However, patients with the same genetic defect can have different clinical presentations, and some individuals who carry known disease-causing variants can appear unaffected. Here, to understand what explains these differences, we study a cohort of 6,987 children assessed by clinical geneticists to have severe neurodevelopmental disorders such as global developmental delay and autism, often in combination with abnormalities of other organ systems. Although the genetic causes of these neurodevelopmental disorders are expected to be almost entirely monogenic, we show that 7.7% of variance in risk is attributable to inherited common genetic variation. We replicated this genome-wide common variant burden by showing, in an independent sample of 728 trios (comprising a child plus both parents) from the same cohort, that this burden is over-transmitted from parents to childre...

Genome Sequencing and Comprehensive Rare Variant Analysis of 465 Families with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

PurposeDespite significant progress in unravelling the genetic causes of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), a substantial proportion of individuals with NDDs remain without a genetic diagnosis following microarray and/or exome sequencing. Here we aimed to assess the power of short-read genome sequencing (GS), complemented with long-read GS, to identify causal variants in NDD participants from the NIHR BioResource project.MethodsShort-read GS was conducted on 692 individuals (489 affected and 203 unaffected relatives) from 465 families. Additionally, long-read GS was performed on five affected individuals who had structural variants (SVs) in technically challenging regions, complex SVs, or required distal variant phasing.ResultsCausal variants were identified in 36% affected individuals (177/489) and a further 26% (129/489) had a variant of uncertain significance, after multiple rounds of re-analysis. Among all reported variants, 88% (333/380) were SNVs/indels, and the remainder we...

The odyssey of complex neurogenetic disorders: From undetermined to positive

American Journal of Medical Genetics Part C: Seminars in Medical Genetics, 2020

The genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity of neurogenetic diseases forces patients and their families into a "diagnostic odyssey." An increase in the variability of genetic disorders and the corresponding gene-disease associations suggest the need to periodically re-evaluate the significance of variants of undetermined pathogenicity. Here, we report the diagnostic and clinical utility of Targeted Gene Panel Sequencing (TGPS) and Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) in 341 patients with suspected neurogenetic disorders from centers in Buenos Aires and Cincinnati over the last 4 years, focusing on the usefulness of reinterpreting variants previously classified as of uncertain significance. After a mean of ±2years (IC 95:0.73-3.27), approximately 30% of the variants of uncertain significance were reclassified as pathogenic. The use of next generation sequencing methods has facilitated the identification of both germline and mosaic pathogenic variants, expanding the diagnostic yield. These results demonstrate the high clinical impact of periodic reanalysis of undetermined variants in clinical neurology.

The Diverse Genetic Landscape of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 2014

Advances in genetic tools and sequencing technology in the past few years have vastly expanded our understanding of the genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders. Recent high-throughput sequencing analyses of structural brain malformations, cognitive and neuropsychiatric disorders, and localized cortical dysplasias have uncovered a diverse genetic landscape beyond classic Mendelian patterns of inheritance. The underlying genetic causes of neurodevelopmental disorders implicate numerous cell biological pathways critical for normal brain development.

Whole-exome sequencing diagnosis of two autosomal recessive disorders in one family Funding sources Conflicts of interest

Autosomal recessive congenital ichthyosis (ARCI) is a genetically heterogeneous disorder for which subtyping through molecular analysis can help determine the eventual phenotype and prognosis. We used whole-exome sequencing to identify a new homozygous splice-site mutation in ST14 (IVS5+1G>A), encoding matrip-tase, in a 4-year-old girl with ARCI from a consanguineous Kuwaiti family. Clinically , she also had hypotrichosis, which supported a diagnosis of ARCI type 11. Only four previous examples of pathogenic mutations in ST14 have been reported, and our findings expand the genotype–phenotype correlation for this subtype of ARCI. Our patient was the second child born to these parents; the first (deceased) and third children had congenital brain and eye abnormalities, of uncertain aetiology and with no precise diagnosis. Further analysis of our patient's exome dataset revealed heterozygosity for a splice-site mutation in POMT1 (IVS4+1G>T), encoding the protein O-mannosyltransferase, a gene implicated in Walker–Warburg syndrome. DNA sequencing in the third child showed homozygosity for this mutation in POMT1. The first-cousin parents were both heterozygous for the splice-site mutations in ST14 and POMT1. In this family, whole-exome sequencing provided accurate subtyping of a form of ARCI in one child and provide an explanation for an undiagnosed developmental disorder in two other children, findings that improve the prospects for diagnostic accuracy and genetic counselling, and demonstrate the impact of next-generation sequenc-ing technologies on clinical genetics.