Characterization of NF1 frameshift mutations in pediatric patients with neurofibromatosis type I.

Neurofibromatosis type I is an autosomal dominant disease with complete penetrance and variable age-dependent expressivity. It is caused by heterozygous mutations in neurofibromin 1 (NF1). These occur throughout the length of the gene, with no apparent hotspots. Even though some mutations have been found repeatedly, most have been observed only once. This, along with the variable expressivity, has made it difficult to establish genotype-phenotype correlations. Here, we report the clinical and molecular characteristics of four pediatric patients with neurofibromatosis type I. Patients were clinically examined and DNA was extracted from peripheral blood. The whole coding sequence of NF1, plus flanking intronic regions, was examined by Sanger sequencing, and four frameshift mutations were identified. The mutation c.3810_3820delCATGCAGACTC was observed in a familial case. This mutation occurred within a sequence comprising two 8-bp direct repeats (GCAGACTC) separated by a CAT trinucleotide, with the deletion leading to the loss of the trinucleotide and the 8-bp repeat following it. The deletion might have occurred due to misalignment of the direct repeats during cell division. In the mutation c.5194delG, the deleted G is nested between two separate mononucleotide tracts (AAAGTTT), which could have played a role in creating the deletion. The other two mutations reported here are c.4076_4077insG, and c.3193_3194insA. All four mutations create premature stop codons. In three mutations, the consequence is predicted to be loss of the GAP-related, Sec14 homology, and pleckstrin homology-like domains; while in the fourth, only the latter two domains would be lost.

Duplication of the Miller-Dieker Critical Region in a Patient with a Subtelomeric Unbalanced Translocation t(10;17)(p15.3;p13.3).

Submicroscopic duplications in the Miller-Dieker critical region have been recently described as new genomic disorders. To date, only a few cases have been reported with overlapping 17p13.3 duplications in this region. Also, small deletions that affect chromosome region 10p14→pter are rarely described in the literature. In this study, we describe, to our knowledge for the first time, a 5-year-old female patient with intellectual disability who has an unbalanced 10;17 translocation inherited from the father. The girl was diagnosed by subtelomeric FISH and array-CGH, showing a 4.43-Mb heterozygous deletion on chromosome 10p that involved 14 genes and a 3.22-Mb single-copy gain on chromosome 17p, which includes the critical region of the Miller-Dieker syndrome and 61 genes. The patient's karyotype was established as 46,XX.arr 10p15.3p15.1(138,206-4,574,436)x1,17p13.3(87,009-3,312,600)x3. Because our patient exhibits a combination of 2 imbalances, she has phenotypic features of both chromosome abnormalities, which have been reported separately. Interestingly, the majority of patients who carry the deletion 10p have visual and auditory deficiencies that are attributed to loss of the GATA3 gene. However, our patient also presents severe hearing and visual problems even though GATA3 is present, suggesting the involvement of different genes that affect the development of the visual and auditory systems.

Role of telomere length in subtelomeric gene expression and its possible relation to cellular senescence.

Transcriptional silencing of subtelomeric genes is associated with telomere length, which is correlated with age. Long and short telomeres in young and old people, respectively, coincide with gene repression and activation in each case. In addition, differential location of genes with respect to telomeres causes telomere position effect. There is very little evidence of the manner in which age-related telomere length affects the expression of specific human subtelomeric genes. We analyzed the relationship between telomere length and gene expression levels in fibroblasts derived from human donors at ages ranging from 0-70 years. We studied three groups of genes located between 100 and 150 kb, 200 and 250 kb, and > 300 kb away from telomeres. We found that the chromatin modifier-encoding genes Eu-HMTase1, ZMYND11, and RASA3 were overexpressed in adults. Our results suggest that short telomere length-related overexpression of chromatin modifiers could underlie transcriptional changes contributing to cellular senescence.