@article {110, title = {Molecular diagnostic experience of whole-exome sequencing in adult patients.}, journal = {Genet Med}, volume = {18}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 07}, pages = {678-85}, abstract = {

PURPOSE: Whole-exome sequencing (WES) is increasingly used as a diagnostic tool in medicine, but prior reports focus on predominantly pediatric cohorts with neurologic or developmental disorders. We describe the diagnostic yield and characteristics of WES in adults.

METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of consecutive WES reports for adults from a diagnostic laboratory. Phenotype composition was determined using Human Phenotype Ontology terms.

RESULTS: Molecular diagnoses were reported for 17.5\% (85/486) of adults, which is lower than that for a primarily pediatric population (25.2\%; P = 0.0003); the diagnostic rate was higher (23.9\%) for those 18-30 years of age compared to patients older than 30 years (10.4\%; P = 0.0001). Dual Mendelian diagnoses contributed to 7\% of diagnoses, revealing blended phenotypes. Diagnoses were more frequent among individuals with abnormalities of the nervous system, skeletal system, head/neck, and growth. Diagnostic rate was independent of family history information, and de novo mutations contributed to 61.4\% of autosomal dominant diagnoses.

CONCLUSION: Early WES experience in adults demonstrates molecular diagnoses in a substantial proportion of patients, informing clinical management, recurrence risk, and recommendations for relatives. A positive family history was not predictive, consistent with molecular diagnoses often revealed by de novo events, informing the Mendelian basis of genetic disease in adults.Genet Med 18 7, 678-685.

}, keywords = {Adult, Exome, Female, Genetic Diseases, Inborn, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetic Testing, Genome, Human, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans, Male, Pathology, Molecular}, issn = {1530-0366}, doi = {10.1038/gim.2015.142}, author = {Posey, Jennifer E and Rosenfeld, Jill A and James, Regis A and Bainbridge, Matthew and Niu, Zhiyv and Wang, Xia and Dhar, Shweta and Wiszniewski, Wojciech and Akdemir, Zeynep H C and Gambin, Tomasz and Xia, Fan and Person, Richard E and Walkiewicz, Magdalena and Shaw, Chad A and Sutton, V Reid and Beaudet, Arthur L and Muzny, Donna and Eng, Christine M and Yang, Yaping and Gibbs, Richard A and Lupski, James R and Boerwinkle, Eric and Plon, Sharon E} } @article {97, title = {POGZ truncating alleles cause syndromic intellectual disability.}, journal = {Genome Med}, volume = {8}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Jan 06}, pages = {3}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Large-scale cohort-based whole exome sequencing of individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) has identified numerous novel candidate disease genes; however, detailed phenotypic information is often lacking in such studies. De novo mutations in pogo transposable element with zinc finger domain (POGZ) have been identified in six independent and diverse cohorts of individuals with NDDs ranging from autism spectrum disorder to developmental delay.

METHODS: Whole exome sequencing was performed on five unrelated individuals. Sanger sequencing was used to validate variants and segregate mutations with the phenotype in available family members.

RESULTS: We identified heterozygous truncating mutations in POGZ in five unrelated individuals, which were confirmed to be de novo or not present in available parental samples. Careful review of the phenotypes revealed shared features that included developmental delay, intellectual disability, hypotonia, behavioral abnormalities, and similar facial characteristics. Variable features included short stature, microcephaly, strabismus and hearing loss.

CONCLUSIONS: While POGZ has been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders in large cohort studies, our data suggest that loss of function variants in POGZ lead to an identifiable syndrome of NDD with specific phenotypic traits. This study exemplifies the era of human reverse clinical genomics ushered in by large disease-directed cohort studies; first defining a new syndrome molecularly and, only subsequently, phenotypically.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Adult, Alleles, Child, Preschool, Exome, Female, Heterozygote, Humans, Infant, Intellectual Disability, Male, Mutation, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Transposases}, issn = {1756-994X}, doi = {10.1186/s13073-015-0253-0}, author = {White, Janson and Beck, Christine R and Harel, Tamar and Posey, Jennifer E and Jhangiani, Shalini N and Tang, Sha and Farwell, Kelly D and Powis, Z{\"o}e and Mendelsohn, Nancy J and Baker, Janice A and Pollack, Lynda and Mason, Kati J and Wierenga, Klaas J and Arrington, Daniel K and Hall, Melissa and Psychogios, Apostolos and Fairbrother, Laura and Walkiewicz, Magdalena and Person, Richard E and Niu, Zhiyv and Zhang, Jing and Rosenfeld, Jill A and Muzny, Donna M and Eng, Christine and Beaudet, Arthur L and Lupski, James R and Boerwinkle, Eric and Gibbs, Richard A and Yang, Yaping and Xia, Fan and Sutton, V Reid} } @article {217, title = {Molecular findings among patients referred for clinical whole-exome sequencing.}, journal = {JAMA}, volume = {312}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Nov 12}, pages = {1870-9}, abstract = {

IMPORTANCE: Clinical whole-exome sequencing is increasingly used for diagnostic evaluation of patients with suspected genetic disorders.

OBJECTIVE: To perform clinical whole-exome sequencing and report (1) the rate of molecular diagnosis among phenotypic groups, (2) the spectrum of genetic alterations contributing to disease, and (3) the prevalence of medically actionable incidental findings such as FBN1 mutations causing Marfan syndrome.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS: Observational study of 2000 consecutive patients with clinical whole-exome sequencing analyzed between June 2012 and August 2014. Whole-exome sequencing tests were performed at a clinical genetics laboratory in the United States. Results were reported by clinical molecular geneticists certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics. Tests were ordered by the patient{\textquoteright}s physician. The patients were primarily pediatric (1756 [88\%]; mean age, 6 years; 888 females [44\%], 1101 males [55\%], and 11 fetuses [1\% gender unknown]), demonstrating diverse clinical manifestations most often including nervous system dysfunction such as developmental delay.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Whole-exome sequencing diagnosis rate overall and by phenotypic category, mode of inheritance, spectrum of genetic events, and reporting of incidental findings.

RESULTS: A molecular diagnosis was reported for 504 patients (25.2\%) with 58\% of the diagnostic mutations not previously reported. Molecular diagnosis rates for each phenotypic category were 143/526 (27.2\%; 95\% CI, 23.5\%-31.2\%) for the neurological group, 282/1147 (24.6\%; 95\% CI, 22.1\%-27.2\%) for the neurological plus other organ systems group, 30/83 (36.1\%; 95\% CI, 26.1\%-47.5\%) for the specific neurological group, and 49/244 (20.1\%; 95\% CI, 15.6\%-25.8\%) for the nonneurological group. The Mendelian disease patterns of the 527 molecular diagnoses included 280 (53.1\%) autosomal dominant, 181 (34.3\%) autosomal recessive (including 5 with uniparental disomy), 65 (12.3\%) X-linked, and 1 (0.2\%) mitochondrial. Of 504 patients with a molecular diagnosis, 23 (4.6\%) had blended phenotypes resulting from 2 single gene defects. About 30\% of the positive cases harbored mutations in disease genes reported since 2011. There were 95 medically actionable incidental findings in genes unrelated to the phenotype but with immediate implications for management in 92 patients (4.6\%), including 59 patients (3\%) with mutations in genes recommended for reporting by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Whole-exome sequencing provided a potential molecular diagnosis for 25\% of a large cohort of patients referred for evaluation of suspected genetic conditions, including detection of rare genetic events and new mutations contributing to disease. The yield of whole-exome sequencing may offer advantages over traditional molecular diagnostic approaches in certain patients.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Adult, Child, Child, Preschool, Exome, Female, Fetus, Genetic Diseases, Inborn, Genetic Testing, Genomics, Humans, Incidental Findings, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Molecular Diagnostic Techniques, Mutation, Phenotype, Referral and Consultation, Sequence Analysis, DNA}, issn = {1538-3598}, doi = {10.1001/jama.2014.14601}, author = {Yang, Yaping and Muzny, Donna M and Xia, Fan and Niu, Zhiyv and Person, Richard and Ding, Yan and Ward, Patricia and Braxton, Alicia and Wang, Min and Buhay, Christian and Veeraraghavan, Narayanan and Hawes, Alicia and Chiang, Theodore and Leduc, Magalie and Beuten, Joke and Zhang, Jing and He, Weimin and Scull, Jennifer and Willis, Alecia and Landsverk, Megan and Craigen, William J and Bekheirnia, Mir Reza and Stray-Pedersen, Asbjorg and Liu, Pengfei and Wen, Shu and Alcaraz, Wendy and Cui, Hong and Walkiewicz, Magdalena and Reid, Jeffrey and Bainbridge, Matthew and Patel, Ankita and Boerwinkle, Eric and Beaudet, Arthur L and Lupski, James R and Plon, Sharon E and Gibbs, Richard A and Eng, Christine M} } @article {211, title = {Mutations in PURA cause profound neonatal hypotonia, seizures, and encephalopathy in 5q31.3 microdeletion syndrome.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {95}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Nov 06}, pages = {579-83}, abstract = {

5q31.3 microdeletion syndrome is characterized by neonatal hypotonia, encephalopathy with or without epilepsy, and severe developmental delay, and the minimal critical deletion interval harbors three genes. We describe 11 individuals with clinical features of 5q31.3 microdeletion syndrome and de novo mutations in PURA, encoding transcriptional activator protein Pur-α, within the critical region. These data implicate causative PURA mutations responsible for the severe neurological phenotypes observed in this syndrome.

}, keywords = {Abnormalities, Multiple, Amino Acid Sequence, Animals, Base Sequence, Caenorhabditis elegans, Chromosome Deletion, Chromosome Mapping, Chromosomes, Human, Pair 5, DNA-Binding Proteins, Humans, Molecular Sequence Data, Muscle Hypotonia, Mutation, Seizures, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Syndrome, Transcription Factors}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2014.09.014}, author = {Lalani, Seema R and Zhang, Jing and Schaaf, Christian P and Brown, Chester W and Magoulas, Pilar and Tsai, Anne Chun-Hui and El-Gharbawy, Areeg and Wierenga, Klaas J and Bartholomew, Dennis and Fong, Chin-To and Barbaro-Dieber, Tina and Kukolich, Mary K and Burrage, Lindsay C and Austin, Elise and Keller, Kory and Pastore, Matthew and Fernandez, Fabio and Lotze, Timothy and Wilfong, Angus and Purcarin, Gabriela and Zhu, Wenmiao and Craigen, William J and McGuire, Marianne and Jain, Mahim and Cooney, Erin and Azamian, Mahshid and Bainbridge, Matthew N and Muzny, Donna M and Boerwinkle, Eric and Person, Richard E and Niu, Zhiyv and Eng, Christine M and Lupski, James R and Gibbs, Richard A and Beaudet, Arthur L and Yang, Yaping and Wang, Meng C and Xia, Fan} } @article {290, title = {Evidence for replicative mechanism in a CHD7 rearrangement in a patient with CHARGE syndrome.}, journal = {Am J Med Genet A}, volume = {161A}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Dec}, pages = {3182-6}, abstract = {

Haploinsufficiency of CHD7 (OMIM$\#$ 608892) is known to cause CHARGE syndrome (OMIM$\#$ 214800). Molecular testing supports a definitive diagnosis in approximately 65-70\% of cases. Most CHD7 mutations arise de novo, and no mutations affecting exon-7 have been reported to date. We report on an 8-year-old girl diagnosed with CHARGE syndrome that was referred to our laboratory for comprehensive CHD7 gene screening. Genomic DNA from the subject with a suspected diagnosis of CHARGE was isolated from peripheral blood lymphocytes and comprehensive Sanger sequencing, along with deletion/duplication analysis of the CHD7 gene using multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA), was performed. MLPA analysis identified a reduced single probe signal for exon-7 of the CHD7 gene consistent with potential heterozygous deletion. Long-range PCR breakpoint analysis identified a complex genomic rearrangement (CGR) leading to the deletion of exon-7 and breakpoints consistent with a replicative mechanism such as fork stalling and template switching (FoSTeS) or microhomology-mediated break-induced replication (MMBIR). Taken together this represents the first evidence for a CHD7 intragenic CGR in a patient with CHARGE syndrome leading to what appears to be also the first report of a mutation specifically disrupting exon-7. Although likely rare, CGR may represent an overlooked mechanism in subjects with CHARGE syndrome that can be missed by current sequencing and dosage assays.

}, keywords = {Abnormalities, Multiple, CHARGE Syndrome, Child, DNA Helicases, DNA Replication, DNA-Binding Proteins, Exons, Female, Gene Deletion, Haploinsufficiency, Humans, Mutation}, issn = {1552-4833}, doi = {10.1002/ajmg.a.36178}, author = {Vatta, Matteo and Niu, Zhiyv and Lupski, James R and Putnam, Philip and Spoonamore, Katherine G and Fang, Ping and Eng, Christine M and Willis, Alecia S} }