ABSTRACT
Childhood dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a leading cause of heart failure requiring cardiac transplantation and approximately 5% of cases result in sudden death. Knowledge of the underlying genetic cause can aid prognostication and clinical management and enables accurate recurrence risk counselling for the family. Here we used genomic sequencing to identify the causative genetic variant(s) in families with children affected by severe DCM. In an international collaborative effort facilitated by GeneMatcher, biallelic variants in PPP1R13L were identified in seven children with severe DCM from five unrelated families following exome or genome sequencing and inheritance-based variant filtering. PPP1R13L encodes inhibitor of apoptosis-stimulating protein of p53 protein (iASPP). In addition to roles in apoptosis, iASPP acts as a regulator of desmosomes and has been implicated in inflammatory pathways. DCM presented early (mean: 2 years 10 months; range: 3 months-9 years) and was progressive, resulting in death (n = 3) or transplant (n = 3), with one child currently awaiting transplant. Genomic sequencing technologies are valuable for the identification of novel and emerging candidate genes. Biallelic variants in PPP1R13L were previously reported in a single consanguineous family with paediatric DCM. The identification here of a further five families now provides sufficient evidence to support a robust gene-disease association between PPP1R13L and severe paediatric DCM. The PPP1R13L gene should be included in panel-based genetic testing for paediatric DCM.
Subject(s)
Cardiomyopathy, Dilated/genetics , Genetic Predisposition to Disease , Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins/genetics , Pediatrics , Repressor Proteins/genetics , Alleles , Cardiomyopathy, Dilated/pathology , Cardiomyopathy, Dilated/therapy , Child , Child, Preschool , Exome/genetics , Female , Genetic Testing , Humans , Infant , Male , PedigreeABSTRACT
Wilson-Konovalov's disease is a rare genetic pathology of copper metabolism that in the first place affects liver and CNS. Due to autosomal-recessive inheritance of this condition, it most frequently occurs in sibs. We report a case of Wilson-Konovalov's disease in two sisters differing in its clinical course: severe abdominal variant in the younger sister and largely neurologic form in the elder one. This observation demonstrates clinical variability of Wilson-Konovalov's disease, the possibility of its late clinical manifestation (at the age 45 years), the necessity of examination of all sibs of a proband regardless of age, and the possibility of radical improvement of prognosis even when the disease is diagnosed at the stage of decompensated liver cirrhosis.
