Increasing knowledge in IGF1R defects: lessons from 35 new patients.

BACKGROUND: The type 1 insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF1R) is a keystone of fetal growth regulation by mediating the effects of IGF-I and IGF-II. Recently, a cohort of patients carrying an IGF1R defect was described, from which a clinical score was established for diagnosis. We assessed this score in a large cohort of patients with identified IGF1R defects, as no external validation was available. Furthermore, we aimed to develop a functional test to allow the classification of variants of unknown significance (VUS) in vitro. METHODS: DNA was tested for either deletions or single nucleotide variant (SNV) and the phosphorylation of downstream pathways studied after stimulation with IGF-I by western blot analysis of fibroblast of nine patients. RESULTS: We detected 21 IGF1R defects in 35 patients, including 8 deletions and 10 heterozygous, 1 homozygous and 1 compound-heterozygous SNVs. The main clinical characteristics of these patients were being born small for gestational age (90.9%), short stature (88.2%) and microcephaly (74.1%). Feeding difficulties and varying degrees of developmental delay were highly prevalent (54.5%). There were no differences in phenotypes between patients with deletions and SNVs of IGF1R. Functional studies showed that the SNVs tested were associated with decreased AKT phosphorylation. CONCLUSION: We report eight new pathogenic variants of IGF1R and an original case with a homozygous SNV. We found the recently proposed clinical score to be accurate for the diagnosis of IGF1R defects with a sensitivity of 95.2%. We developed an efficient functional test to assess the pathogenicity of SNVs, which is useful, especially for VUS.

New cases of isolated congenital central hypothyroidism due to homozygous thyrotropin beta gene mutations: a pitfall to neonatal screening.

BACKGROUND: Congenital central hypothyroidism (CCH) is a rare condition that is often diagnosed in late childhood in countries where neonatal screening programs rely solely on detecting thyrotropin (TSH) elevation. TSHbeta gene mutation is one of the causes of CCH. We describe two cases of c.Q49X mutation and three cases of c.C105Vfs114X mutation in exon 3 of the TSH beta-subunit gene. SUMMARY: We found two different TSHbeta gene mutations in two families. In one family, we identified a missense mutation in exon 3 leading to a premature stop at position 49 (c.Q49X) in the two affected twins. In the other family, the three affected siblings had a 313delT nucleotide deletion leading to a frame shift responsible for premature termination at codon 114 (c.C105Vfs114X); neonatal screening showed very low TSH levels in all three patients. The presence of inappropriately low TSH levels at birth in the three affected members of the second family raises questions about the value of the TSH level for CCH screening. CONCLUSIONS: The marked phenotypic variability in patients with the c.Q49X mutation suggests modulation by interacting genes and/or differences in the genetic background. TSHbeta gene mutations should be suspected in neonates with inappropriately low TSH levels.

Paediatric phenotype of Kallmann syndrome due to mutations of fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1).

Kallmann syndrome characterised by hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH) and anosmia is genetically heterogeneous with X-linked, autosomal dominant and autosomal recessive forms. The autosomal dominant form due to loss of function mutation in the fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1) accounts for about 10% of cases. We report here three paediatric cases of Kallmann syndrome with unusual phenotype in two unrelated patients with severe ear anomalies (hypoplasia or agenesis of external ear) associated with classical features, such as cleft palate, dental agenesis, syndactylia, micropenis and cryptorchidism. We found de novo mutation in these two patients (Cys178Ser and Arg622Gly, respectively), and one inherited Arg622Gln mutation with intrafamilial variable phenotype. These genotype-phenotype correlations indicate that paediatric phenotypic expression of FGFR1 loss of function mutations is highly variable, the severity of the oro-facial malformations at birth does not predict gonadotropic function at the puberty and that de novo mutations of FGFR1 are relatively frequent.