@article {276, title = {Whole exome sequencing identifies de novo mutations in GATA6 associated with congenital diaphragmatic hernia.}, journal = {J Med Genet}, volume = {51}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Mar}, pages = {197-202}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is a common birth defect affecting 1 in 3000 births. It is characterised by herniation of abdominal viscera through an incompletely formed diaphragm. Although chromosomal anomalies and mutations in several genes have been implicated, the cause for most patients is unknown.

METHODS: We used whole exome sequencing in two families with CDH and congenital heart disease, and identified mutations in GATA6 in both.

RESULTS: In the first family, we identified a de novo missense mutation (c.1366C>T, p.R456C) in a sporadic CDH patient with tetralogy of Fallot. In the second, a nonsense mutation (c.712G>T, p.G238*) was identified in two siblings with CDH and a large ventricular septal defect. The G238* mutation was inherited from their mother, who was clinically affected with congenital absence of the pericardium, patent ductus arteriosus and intestinal malrotation. Deep sequencing of blood and saliva-derived DNA from the mother suggested somatic mosaicism as an explanation for her milder phenotype, with only approximately 15\% mutant alleles. To determine the frequency of GATA6 mutations in CDH, we sequenced the gene in 378 patients with CDH. We identified one additional de novo mutation (c.1071delG, p.V358Cfs34*).

CONCLUSIONS: Mutations in GATA6 have been previously associated with pancreatic agenesis and congenital heart disease. We conclude that, in addition to the heart and the pancreas, GATA6 is involved in development of two additional organs, the diaphragm and the pericardium. In addition, we have shown that de novo mutations can contribute to the development of CDH, a common birth defect.

}, keywords = {Amino Acid Sequence, DNA Mutational Analysis, Exome, Female, GATA6 Transcription Factor, Hernia, Diaphragmatic, Hernias, Diaphragmatic, Congenital, Humans, Male, Molecular Sequence Data, Mutation, Sequence Alignment, Sequence Analysis, DNA}, issn = {1468-6244}, doi = {10.1136/jmedgenet-2013-101989}, author = {Yu, Lan and Bennett, James T and Wynn, Julia and Carvill, Gemma L and Cheung, Yee Him and Shen, Yufeng and Mychaliska, George B and Azarow, Kenneth S and Crombleholme, Timothy M and Chung, Dai H and Potoka, Douglas and Warner, Brad W and Bucher, Brian and Lim, Foong-Yen and Pietsch, John and Stolar, Charles and Aspelund, Gudrun and Arkovitz, Marc S and Mefford, Heather and Chung, Wendy K} } @article {300, title = {A recurrent PDGFRB mutation causes familial infantile myofibromatosis.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {92}, year = {2013}, month = {2013 Jun 06}, pages = {996-1000}, abstract = {

Infantile myofibromatosis (IM) is the most common benign fibrous tumor of soft tissues affecting young children. By using whole-exome sequencing, RNA sequencing, and targeted sequencing, we investigated germline and tumor DNA in individuals from four distinct families with the familial form of IM and in five simplex IM cases with no previous family history of this disease. We identified a germline mutation c.1681C>T (p.Arg561Cys) in platelet-derived growth factor receptor β (PDGFRB) in all 11 affected individuals with familial IM, although none of the five individuals with nonfamilial IM had mutations in this gene. We further identified a second heterozygous mutation in PDGFRB in two myofibromas from one of the affected familial cases, indicative of a potential second hit in this gene in the tumor. PDGFR-β promotes growth of mesenchymal cells, including blood vessels and smooth muscles, which are affected in IM. Our findings indicate p.Arg561Cys substitution in PDGFR-β as a cause of the dominant form of this disease. They provide a rationale for further investigations of this specific mutation and gene to assess the benefits of targeted therapies against PDGFR-β in aggressive life-threatening familial forms of the disease.

}, keywords = {Amino Acid Sequence, Female, Genes, Dominant, Genetic Association Studies, Germ-Line Mutation, Heterozygote, Humans, Male, Models, Molecular, Mutation, Missense, Myofibromatosis, Pedigree, Protein Structure, Tertiary, Receptor, Notch3, Receptor, Platelet-Derived Growth Factor beta, Receptors, Notch, Sequence Analysis, DNA}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2013.04.026}, author = {Cheung, Yee Him and Gayden, Tenzin and Campeau, Philippe M and LeDuc, Charles A and Russo, Donna and Nguyen, Van-Hung and Guo, Jiancheng and Qi, Ming and Guan, Yanfang and Albrecht, Steffen and Moroz, Brenda and Eldin, Karen W and Lu, James T and Schwartzentruber, Jeremy and Malkin, David and Berghuis, Albert M and Emil, Sherif and Gibbs, Richard A and Burk, David L and Vanstone, Megan and Lee, Brendan H and Orchard, David and Boycott, Kym M and Chung, Wendy K and Jabado, Nada} } @article {643, title = {A fast and noise-resilient approach to detect rare-variant associations with deep sequencing data for complex disorders.}, journal = {Genet Epidemiol}, volume = {36}, year = {2012}, month = {2012 Nov}, pages = {675-85}, abstract = {

Next generation sequencing technology has enabled the paradigm shift in genetic association studies from the common disease/common variant to common disease/rare-variant hypothesis. Analyzing individual rare variants is known to be underpowered; therefore association methods have been developed that aggregate variants across a genetic region, which for exome sequencing is usually a gene. The foreseeable widespread use of whole genome sequencing poses new challenges in statistical analysis. It calls for new rare-variant association methods that are statistically powerful, robust against high levels of noise due to inclusion of noncausal variants, and yet computationally efficient. We propose a simple and powerful statistic that combines the disease-associated P-values of individual variants using a weight that is the inverse of the expected standard deviation of the allele frequencies under the null. This approach, dubbed as Sigma-P method, is extremely robust to the inclusion of a high proportion of noncausal variants and is also powerful when both detrimental and protective variants are present within a genetic region. The performance of the Sigma-P method was tested using simulated data based on realistic population demographic and disease models and its power was compared to several previously published methods. The results demonstrate that this method generally outperforms other rare-variant association methods over a wide range of models. Additionally, sequence data on the ANGPTL family of genes from the Dallas Heart Study were tested for associations with nine metabolic traits and both known and novel putative associations were uncovered using the Sigma-P method.

}, keywords = {Angiopoietin-like 4 Protein, Angiopoietin-like Proteins, Angiopoietins, Case-Control Studies, Data Interpretation, Statistical, Gene Frequency, Genetic Association Studies, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Genetic Variation, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans, Metabolism, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Texas, Triglycerides}, issn = {1098-2272}, doi = {10.1002/gepi.21662}, author = {Cheung, Yee Him and Wang, Gao and Leal, Suzanne M and Wang, Shuang} }