@article {338, title = {Mutations in EBF3 Disturb Transcriptional Profiles and Cause Intellectual Disability, Ataxia, and Facial Dysmorphism.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {100}, year = {2017}, month = {2017 Jan 05}, pages = {117-127}, abstract = {

From a GeneMatcher-enabled international collaboration, we identified ten individuals affected by intellectual disability, speech delay, ataxia, and facial dysmorphism and carrying a deleterious EBF3 variant detected by whole-exome sequencing. One 9-bp duplication and one splice-site, five missense, and two nonsense variants in EBF3 were found; the mutations occurred de novo in eight individuals, and the missense variant c.625C>T (p.Arg209Trp) was inherited by two affected siblings from their healthy mother, who is mosaic. EBF3 belongs to the early B cell factor family (also known as Olf, COE, or O/E) and is a transcription factor involved in neuronal differentiation and maturation. Structural assessment predicted that the five amino acid substitutions have damaging effects on DNA binding of EBF3. Transient expression of EBF3 mutant proteins in HEK293T cells revealed mislocalization of all but one mutant in the cytoplasm, as well as nuclear localization. By transactivation assays, all EBF3 mutants showed significantly reduced or no ability to activate transcription of the reporter gene CDKN1A, and in~situ subcellular fractionation experiments demonstrated that EBF3 mutant proteins were less tightly associated with chromatin. Finally, in RNA-seq and ChIP-seq experiments, EBF3 acted as a transcriptional regulator, and mutant EBF3 had reduced genome-wide DNA binding and gene-regulatory activity. Our findings demonstrate that variants disrupting EBF3-mediated transcriptional regulation cause intellectual disability and developmental delay and are present in \~{}0.1\% of individuals with unexplained neurodevelopmental disorders.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Adult, Amino Acid Substitution, Ataxia, Child, Child, Preschool, Chromatin, Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p21, Developmental Disabilities, Exome, Face, Female, Gene Expression Regulation, Genes, Reporter, HEK293 Cells, Humans, Intellectual Disability, Language Development Disorders, Male, Models, Molecular, Mosaicism, Mutation, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Protein Transport, Syndrome, Transcription Factors, Transcription, Genetic}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.11.012}, author = {Harms, Frederike Leonie and Girisha, Katta M and Hardigan, Andrew A and Kort{\"u}m, Fanny and Shukla, Anju and Alawi, Malik and Dalal, Ashwin and Brady, Lauren and Tarnopolsky, Mark and Bird, Lynne M and Ceulemans, Sophia and Bebin, Martina and Bowling, Kevin M and Hiatt, Susan M and Lose, Edward J and Primiano, Michelle and Chung, Wendy K and Juusola, Jane and Akdemir, Zeynep C and Bainbridge, Matthew and Charng, Wu-Lin and Drummond-Borg, Margaret and Eldomery, Mohammad K and El-Hattab, Ayman W and Saleh, Mohammed A M and B{\'e}zieau, St{\'e}phane and Cogn{\'e}, Benjamin and Isidor, Bertrand and K{\"u}ry, S{\'e}bastien and Lupski, James R and Myers, Richard M and Cooper, Gregory M and Kutsche, Kerstin} } @article {10, title = {MIPEP recessive variants cause a syndrome of left ventricular non-compaction, hypotonia, and infantile death.}, journal = {Genome Med}, volume = {8}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Nov 01}, pages = {106}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial presequence proteases perform fundamental functions as they process about 70~\% of all mitochondrial preproteins that are encoded in the nucleus and imported posttranslationally. The mitochondrial intermediate presequence protease MIP/Oct1, which carries out precursor processing, has not yet been established to have a role in human disease.

METHODS: Whole exome sequencing was performed on four unrelated probands with left ventricular non-compaction (LVNC), developmental delay (DD), seizures, and severe hypotonia. Proposed pathogenic variants were confirmed by Sanger sequencing or array comparative genomic hybridization. Functional analysis of the identified MIP variants was performed using the model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae as the protein and its functions are highly conserved from yeast to human.

RESULTS: Biallelic single nucleotide variants (SNVs) or copy number variants (CNVs) in MIPEP, which encodes MIP, were present in all four probands, three of whom had infantile/childhood death. Two patients had compound heterozygous SNVs (p.L582R/p.L71Q and p.E602*/p.L306F) and one patient from a consanguineous family had a homozygous SNV (p.K343E). The fourth patient, identified through the GeneMatcher tool, a part of the Matchmaker Exchange Project, was found to have inherited a paternal SNV (p.H512D) and a maternal CNV (1.4-Mb deletion of 13q12.12) that includes MIPEP. All amino acids affected in the patients{\textquoteright} missense variants are highly conserved from yeast to human and therefore S. cerevisiae was employed for functional analysis (for p.L71Q, p.L306F, and p.K343E). The mutations p.L339F (human p.L306F) and p.K376E (human p.K343E) resulted in a severe decrease of Oct1 protease activity and accumulation of non-processed Oct1 substrates and consequently impaired viability under respiratory growth conditions. The p.L83Q (human p.L71Q) failed to localize to the mitochondria.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings reveal for the first time the role of the mitochondrial intermediate peptidase in human disease. Loss of MIP function results in a syndrome which consists of LVNC, DD, seizures, hypotonia, and cataracts. Our approach highlights the power of data exchange and the importance of an interrelationship between clinical and research efforts for disease gene discovery.

}, keywords = {Adult, Amino Acid Sequence, Female, Genes, Recessive, Heart Defects, Congenital, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Metalloendopeptidases, Muscle Hypotonia, Pedigree, Phenotype, Sequence Homology, Amino Acid, Sudden Infant Death, Syndrome}, issn = {1756-994X}, doi = {10.1186/s13073-016-0360-6}, author = {Eldomery, Mohammad K and Akdemir, Zeynep C and V{\"o}gtle, F-Nora and Charng, Wu-Lin and Mulica, Patrycja and Rosenfeld, Jill A and Gambin, Tomasz and Gu, Shen and Burrage, Lindsay C and Al Shamsi, Aisha and Penney, Samantha and Jhangiani, Shalini N and Zimmerman, Holly H and Muzny, Donna M and Wang, Xia and Tang, Jia and Medikonda, Ravi and Ramachandran, Prasanna V and Wong, Lee-Jun and Boerwinkle, Eric and Gibbs, Richard A and Eng, Christine M and Lalani, Seema R and Hertecant, Jozef and Rodenburg, Richard J and Abdul-Rahman, Omar A and Yang, Yaping and Xia, Fan and Wang, Meng C and Lupski, James R and Meisinger, Chris and Sutton, V Reid} } @article {75, title = {Monoallelic and Biallelic Variants in EMC1 Identified in Individuals with Global Developmental Delay, Hypotonia, Scoliosis, and Cerebellar Atrophy.}, journal = {Am J Hum Genet}, volume = {98}, year = {2016}, month = {2016 Mar 03}, pages = {562-570}, abstract = {

The paradigm of a single gene associated with one specific phenotype and mode of inheritance has been repeatedly challenged. Genotype-phenotype correlations can often be traced to different mutation types, localization of the variants in distinct protein domains, or the trigger of or escape from nonsense-mediated decay. Using whole-exome sequencing, we identified homozygous variants in EMC1 that segregated with a phenotype of developmental delay, hypotonia, scoliosis, and cerebellar atrophy in three families. In addition, a de novo heterozygous EMC1 variant was seen in an individual with a similar clinical and MRI imaging phenotype. EMC1 encodes a member of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-membrane protein complex (EMC), an evolutionarily conserved complex that has been proposed to have multiple roles in ER-associated degradation, ER-mitochondria tethering, and proper assembly of multi-pass transmembrane proteins. Perturbations of protein folding and organelle crosstalk have been implicated in neurodegenerative processes including cerebellar atrophy. We propose EMC1 as a gene in which either biallelic or monoallelic variants might lead to a syndrome including intellectual disability and preferential degeneration of the cerebellum.

}, keywords = {Adolescent, Alleles, Amino Acid Sequence, Atrophy, Cerebellum, Child, Child, Preschool, Developmental Disabilities, Endoplasmic Reticulum-Associated Degradation, Female, Genetic Association Studies, Genetic Variation, Heterozygote, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Molecular Sequence Data, Muscle Hypotonia, Mutation, Pedigree, Protein Folding, Proteins, Scoliosis}, issn = {1537-6605}, doi = {10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.01.011}, author = {Harel, Tamar and Yesil, G{\"o}zde and Bayram, Yavuz and Coban-Akdemir, Zeynep and Charng, Wu-Lin and Karaca, Ender and Al Asmari, Ali and Eldomery, Mohammad K and Hunter, Jill V and Jhangiani, Shalini N and Rosenfeld, Jill A and Pehlivan, Davut and El-Hattab, Ayman W and Saleh, Mohammed A and LeDuc, Charles A and Muzny, Donna and Boerwinkle, Eric and Gibbs, Richard A and Chung, Wendy K and Yang, Yaping and Belmont, John W and Lupski, James R} }