ABSTRACT
Focal epilepsy (FE) is one of the most common forms of adult epilepsy and is usually regarded as a multifactorial disorder. Febrile seizures (FS) often appear during childhood in a subtype of FE patients, i.e. with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and hippocampal sclerosis (HS). FS are the most common human convulsive event associated with fever. Genetic evidences for FS have suggested a complex mode of inheritance. Until now, to investigate genes at the genomic level, linkage analysis of familial forms and association studies have been performed, but nothing conclusive has been clearly related to FE and FS. As complex disorders, environmental factors might play a crucial role through epigenetic modification of key candidate genes such as CPA6, which encodes Carboxypeptidase A6, an extracellular protein. Therefore, we assessed DNA methylation in promoter of CPA6. In 186 FE patients and 92 FS patients compared to 93 healthy controls and 42 treated controls with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs), we found significant higher levels of methylation for epileptic patients. Methylation status were 3.4% (±3.2%) for FE cases and 4.3% (±3.5%) for FS cases, whereas healthy individuals and treated controls with AEDs showed a level of 0.8% (±2.9%) and 1.5% (±3.9%), respectively (p≤0.001 for all comparisons). These results let growing evidence for DNA methylation involvment in FE and FS.
Subject(s)
Carboxypeptidases A/genetics , DNA Methylation/genetics , Epilepsies, Partial/genetics , Promoter Regions, Genetic/genetics , Seizures, Febrile/genetics , Adult , Base Sequence , Carboxypeptidases A/metabolism , Cohort Studies , Epilepsies, Partial/diagnosis , Epilepsies, Partial/metabolism , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Molecular Sequence Data , Seizures, Febrile/diagnosis , Seizures, Febrile/metabolism , Young AdultABSTRACT
The objective was to investigate whether the described mutations of the SCN1A, SCN1B and GABRG2 genes are associated to generalised epilepsy with febrile seizure plus (GEFS+) in two Tunisian families. We performed a genetic study of two multigenerational Tunisian families with GEFS+ spectrum. The molecular analysis included a PCR amplification of SCN1B, SCN1A and GAGRG2 exons, then a screening of the known SCN1B, SCN1A and GABRG2 gene mutations by direct sequencing. The data excluded the involvement of all known published mutations. However, an insertion of a T nucleotide at a heterozygous state within the intron 12 of the SCN1A gene has been identified in two probands and their parents. Our results corroborate the genetic heterogeneity of GEFS+ predominantly in epilepsy patients of different countries and ethnic groups.
