Genetic Structures Commons^™

The Dna Methylome Of Pediatric Brain Tumors Appears Shaped By Structural Variation And Predicts Survival, Fengju Chen, Yiqun Zhang, Lanlan Shen, Chad J Creighton

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Structural variation heavily influences the molecular landscape of cancer, in part by impacting DNA methylation-mediated transcriptional regulation. Here, using multi-omic datasets involving >2400 pediatric brain and central nervous system tumors of diverse histologies from the Children's Brain Tumor Network, we report hundreds of genes and associated CpG islands (CGIs) for which the nearby presence of somatic structural variant (SV) breakpoints is recurrently associated with altered expression or DNA methylation, respectively, including tumor suppressor genes ATRX and CDKN2A. Altered DNA methylation near enhancers associates with nearby somatic SV breakpoints, including MYC and MYCN. A subset of genes with SV-CGI methylation associations …

Frontiers In Congenital Disorders Of Glycosylation Consortium, A Cross-Sectional Study Report At Year 5 Of 280 Individuals In The Natural History Cohort, Christina Lam, Fernando Scaglia, Gerard T Berry, Austin Larson, Kyriakie Sarafoglou, Hans C Andersson, Evgenia Sklirou, Queenie K G Tan, Rodrigo T Starosta, Mustafa Sadek, Lynne Wolfe, Seishu Horikoshi, May Ali, Rita Barone, Teresa Campbell, Irene J Chang, Kiaira Coles, Edward Cook, Erik A Eklund, Nicole M Engelhardt, Mary Freeman, Jennifer Friedman, Debbie Y T Fu, Grace Botzo, Brandy Rawls, Christien Hernandez, Christin Johnsen, Kierstin Keller, Sara Kramer, Bryce Kuschel, Angela Leshinski, Ivan Martinez-Duncker, Gina L Mazza, Saadet Mercimek-Andrews, Bradley S Miller, Karthik Muthusamy, Juanita Neira, Marc C Patterson, Natalie Pogorelc, Lex N Powers, Elizabeth Ramey, Michaela Reinhart, Audrey Squire, Jenny Thies, Jerry Vockley, Hayden Vreugdenhil, Peter Witters, Mehdi Youbi, Aziza Zeighami, Roni Zemet, Andrew C Edmondson, Eva Morava

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objective: Our report describes clinical, genetic, and biochemical features of participants with a molecularly confirmed congenital disorder of glycosylation (CDG) enrolled in the Frontiers in Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (FCDGC) Natural History cohort at year 5 of the study.

Methods: We enrolled individuals with a known or suspected CDG into the FCDGC Natural History Study, a multicenter prospective and retrospective natural history study of all genetic causes of CDG. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of baseline study visit data from participants with confirmed CDG who were consented into the FCDGC Natural History Study (5U54NS115198) from October 2019 to November 2023. …

Update On Cancer Predisposition Syndromes And Surveillance Guidelines For Childhood Brain Tumors, Jordan R Hansford, Anirban Das, Rose B Mcgee, Yoshiko Nakano, Jack Brzezinski, Sarah R Scollon, Surya P Rednam, Jaclyn Schienda, Orli Michaeli, Sun Young Kim, Mary-Louise C Greer, Rosanna Weksberg, Douglas R Stewart, William D Foulkes, Uri Tabori, Kristian W Pajtler, Stefan M Pfister, Garrett M Brodeur, Junne Kamihara

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Tumors of the central nervous system (CNS) comprise the second most common group of neoplasms in childhood. The incidence of germline predisposition among children with brain tumors continues to grow as our knowledge on disease etiology increases. Some children with brain tumors may present with nonmalignant phenotypic features of specific syndromes (e.g., nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome, neurofibromatosis type 1 and type 2, DICER1 syndrome, and constitutional mismatch-repair deficiency), while others may present with a strong family history of cancer (e.g., Li-Fraumeni syndrome) or with a rare tumor commonly found in the context of germline predisposition (e.g., rhabdoid tumor predisposition …

Expanding The Phenotype Of Ppp1r21-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder, Mohammed Almannai, Dana Marafi, Maha S Zaki, Reza Maroofian, Stephanie Efthymiou, Nebal Waill Saadi, Bilal Filimban, Hormos Salimi Dafsari, Fatima Rahman, Shazia Maqbool, Eissa Faqeih, Fuad Al Mutairi, Hind Alsharhan, Omar Abdelaty, Saadoun Bin-Hasan, Ruizhi Duan, Mahmoud M Noureldeen, Alaa Alqattan, Henry Houlden, Jill V Hunter, Jennifer E Posey, James R Lupski, Ayman W El-Hattab

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

PPP1R21 encodes for a conserved protein that is involved in endosomal maturation. Biallelic pathogenic variants in PPP1R21 have been associated with a syndromic neurodevelopmental disorder from studying 13 affected individuals. In this report, we present 11 additional individuals from nine unrelated families and their clinical, radiological, and molecular findings. We identified eight different variants in PPP1R21, of which six were novel variants. Global developmental delay and hypotonia are neurological features that were observed in all individuals. There is also a similar pattern of dysmorphic features with coarse faces as a gestalt observed in several individuals. Common findings in 75% of …

Pediatric Cancer Incidence Among Individuals With Overgrowth Syndromes And Overgrowth Features: A Population-Based Assessment In Seven Million Children, Gillean K Connolly, Rachel D Harris, Charles Shumate, Surya P Rednam, Mark A Canfield, Sharon E Plon, Joanne Nguyen, Jeremy M Schraw, Philip J Lupo

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Overgrowth syndromes (e.g., Beckwith-Wiedemann) are associated with an increased risk of pediatric cancer, although there are few population-based estimates of risk. There are also limited studies describing associations between other overgrowth features (e.g., hepatosplenomegaly) and pediatric cancer. Therefore, cancer risk among children with these conditions was evaluated with data from a large, diverse population-based registry linkage study.

Methods: This study includes all live births in Texas during the years 1999-2017. Children with overgrowth features and syndromes were identified from the Texas Birth Defects Registry; children with cancer were identified by linkage to the Texas Cancer Registry. Cox regression models …

Effective Methods For Bulk Rna-Seq Deconvolution Using Scnrna-Seq Transcriptomes, Francisco Avila Cobos, Mohammad Javad Najaf Panah, Jessica Epps, Xiaochen Long, Tsz-Kwong Man, Hua-Sheng Chiu, Elad Chomsky, Evgeny Kiner, Michael J Krueger, Diego Di Bernardo, Luis Voloch, Jan Molenaar, Sander R Van Hooff, Frank Westermann, Selina Jansky, Michele L Redell, Pieter Mestdagh, Pavel Sumazin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: RNA profiling technologies at single-cell resolutions, including single-cell and single-nuclei RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq and snRNA-seq, scnRNA-seq for short), can help characterize the composition of tissues and reveal cells that influence key functions in both healthy and disease tissues. However, the use of these technologies is operationally challenging because of high costs and stringent sample-collection requirements. Computational deconvolution methods that infer the composition of bulk-profiled samples using scnRNA-seq-characterized cell types can broaden scnRNA-seq applications, but their effectiveness remains controversial.

Results: We produced the first systematic evaluation of deconvolution methods on datasets with either known or scnRNA-seq-estimated compositions. Our analyses revealed …

Genotypic And Phenotypic Spectrum Of Infantile Liver Failure Due To Pathogenic Trmu Variants, Georg F Vogel, Yael Mozer-Glassberg, Yuval E Landau, Lea D Schlieben, Holger Prokisch, René G Feichtinger, Johannes A Mayr, Heiko Brennenstuhl, Julian Schröter, Agnes Pechlaner, Fowzan S Alkuraya, Joshua J Baker, Giulia Barcia, Ivo Baric, Nancy Braverman, Birute Burnyte, John Christodoulou, Elzbieta Ciara, David Coman, Anibh M Das, Niklas Darin, Adela Della Marina, Felix Distelmaier, Erik A Eklund, Melike Ersoy, Weiyan Fang, Pauline Gaignard, Rebecca D Ganetzky, Emmanuel Gonzales, Caoimhe Howard, Joanne Hughes, Vassiliki Konstantopoulou, Melis Kose, Marina Kerr, Aneal Khan, Dominic Lenz, Robert Mcfarland, Merav Gil Margolis, Kevin Morrison, Thomas Müller, Kei Murayama, Emanuele Nicastro, Alessandra Pennisi, Heidi Peters, Dorota Piekutowska-Abramczuk, Agnès Rötig, René Santer, Fernando Scaglia, Manuel Schiff, Mohmmad Shagrani, Mark Sharrard, Claudia Soler-Alfonso, Christian Staufner, Imogen Storey, Michael Stormon, Robert W Taylor, David R Thorburn, Elisa Leao Teles, Jian-She Wang, Daniel Weghuber, Saskia Wortmann

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Purpose: This study aimed to define the genotypic and phenotypic spectrum of reversible acute liver failure (ALF) of infancy resulting from biallelic pathogenic TRMU variants and determine the role of cysteine supplementation in its treatment.

Methods: Individuals with biallelic (likely) pathogenic variants in TRMU were studied within an international retrospective collection of de-identified patient data.

Results: In 62 individuals, including 30 previously unreported cases, we described 47 (likely) pathogenic TRMU variants, of which 17 were novel, and 1 intragenic deletion. Of these 62 individuals, 42 were alive at a median age of 6.8 (0.6-22) years after a median follow-up of …

Srsf1 Haploinsufficiency Is Responsible For A Syndromic Developmental Disorder Associated With Intellectual Disability, Elke Bogaert, Aurore Garde, Thierry Gautier, Kathleen Rooney, Yannis Duffourd, Pontus Leblanc, Emma Van Reempts, Frederic Tran Mau-Them, Ingrid M Wentzensen, Kit Sing Au, Kate Richardson, Hope Northrup, Vincent Gatinois, David Geneviève, Raymond J Louie, Michael J Lyons, Lone Walentin Laulund, Charlotte Brasch-Andersen, Trine Maxel Juul, Fatima El It, Nathalie Marle, Patrick Callier, Raissa Relator, Sadegheh Haghshenas, Haley Mcconkey, Jennifer Kerkhof, Claudia Cesario, Antonio Novelli, Nicola Brunetti-Pierri, Michele Pinelli, Perrine Pennamen, Sophie Naudion, Marine Legendre, Cécile Courdier, Aurelien Trimouille, Martine Doco Fenzy, Lynn Pais, Alison Yeung, Kimberly Nugent, Elizabeth R Roeder, Tadahiro Mitani, Jennifer E Posey, Daniel Calame, Hagith Yonath, Jill A Rosenfeld, Luciana Musante, Flavio Faletra, Francesca Montanari, Giovanna Sartor, Alessandra Vancini, Marco Seri, Claude Besmond, Karine Poirier, Laurence Hubert, Dimitri Hemelsoet, Arnold Munnich, James R Lupski, Christophe Philippe, Christel Thauvin-Robinet, Laurence Faivre, Bekim Sadikovic, Jérôme Govin, Bart Dermaut, Antonio Vitobello

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

SRSF1 (also known as ASF/SF2) is a non-small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (non-snRNP) that belongs to the arginine/serine (R/S) domain family. It recognizes and binds to mRNA, regulating both constitutive and alternative splicing. The complete loss of this proto-oncogene in mice is embryonically lethal. Through international data sharing, we identified 17 individuals (10 females and 7 males) with a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) with heterozygous germline SRSF1 variants, mostly de novo, including three frameshift variants, three nonsense variants, seven missense variants, and two microdeletions within region 17q22 encompassing SRSF1. Only in one family, the de novo origin could not be established. All individuals …

Access To Clinically Indicated Genetic Tests For Pediatric Patients With Medicaid: Evidence From Outpatient Genetics Clinics In Texas, Haley Streff, Crescenda L Uhles, Heather Fisher, Rachel Franciskovich, Rebecca O Littlejohn, Amanda Gerard, Julianna Hudnall, Hadley Stevens Smith

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Purpose: Little is known about how Medicaid coverage policies affect access to genetic tests for pediatric patients. Building upon and extending a previous analysis of prior authorization requests (PARs), we describe expected coverage of genetic tests submitted to Texas Medicaid and the PAR and diagnostic outcomes of those tests.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed genetic tests ordered at 3 pediatric outpatient genetics clinics in Texas. We compared Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes with the Texas Medicaid fee-for-service schedule (FFSS) to determine whether tests were expected to be covered by Medicaid. We assessed completion and diagnostic yield of commonly ordered tests.

Results: …

Cognitive And Academic Performance Of Rural Zambian Youth Exposed To Hiv, Sophie Jago, Joseph Mwaba Chirwa, Mei Tan, Philip E Thuma, Elena L Grigorenko

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Studies focusing on children affected by HIV have shown that they have generally lower academic performance, however, few studies separate children who are HIV exposed and infected (CHEI) and those who are HIV exposed but uninfected (CHEU). Importantly, in rural sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of studies on CHEI and CHEU examine academic performance indirectly based on cognitive test scores. Therefore, studies assessing the effects of HIV on academic achievement directly for CHEI and CHEU are needed. This article evaluates the effects of HIV-infection on cognitive and academic performance by comparing CHEI (n = 82) and CHEU (n = 1045) aged …

Growth Parameters In Children With Achondroplasia: A 7-Year, Prospective, Multinational, Observational Study, Ravi Savarirayan, Melita Irving, Paul Harmatz, Borja Delgado, William R Wilcox, John Philips, Natalie Owen, Carlos A Bacino, Louise Tofts, Joel Charrow, Lynda E Polgreen, Julie Hoover-Fong, Paul Arundel, Ignacio Ginebreda, Howard M Saal, Donald Basel, Rosendo Ullot Font, Keiichi Ozono, Michael B Bober, Valerie Cormier-Daire, Kim-Hanh Le Quan Sang, Genevieve Baujat, Yasemin Alanay, Frank Rutsch, Daniel Hoernschemeyer, Klaus Mohnike, Hiroshi Mochizuki, Asako Tajima, Yumiko Kotani, David D Weaver, Klane K White, Clare Army, Kevin Larrimore, Keith Gregg, George Jeha, Claire Milligan, Elena Fisheleva, Alice Huntsman-Labed, Jonathan Day

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Purpose: This study was undertaken to collect baseline growth parameters in children with achondroplasia who might enroll in interventional trials of vosoritide, and to establish a historical control.

Methods: In this prospective, observational study, participants (≤17 years) underwent a detailed medical history and physical examination and were followed every 3 months until they finished participating in the study by enrolling in an interventional trial or withdrawing.

Results: A total of 363 children were enrolled (28 centers, 8 countries). Mean (SD) follow up was 20.4 (15.0) months. In participants < 1 year, mean annualized growth velocity (AGV) was 11.6 cm/year for girls and 14.6 cm/year for boys. By age 1 year, mean AGV decreased to 7.4 cm/year in girls and 7.1 cm/year in boys. By age 10 years, mean AGV decreased to 3.6 cm/year for both sexes. Mean height z-score in participants < 1 year was -2.5 for girls and -3.2 for boys and decreased up to the age 5 years (-5.3 for girls; -4.6 for boys). Girls and boys had a disproportionate upper-to-lower body segment ratio. Mean ratio was highest in participants aged < 1 year (2.9 for girls; 2.8 for boys) and decreased gradually to approximately 2 in both sexes from 4 years of age onward.

Conclusion: This study represents one of the largest datasets of prospectively collected …

Exome Analysis Of Rare And Common Variants Within The Nod Signaling Pathway., Gaia Andreoletti, Valentina Shakhnovich, Kathy Christenson, Tracy Coelho, Rachel Haggarty, Nadeem A. Afzal, Akshay Batra, Britt-Sabina Petersen, Matthew Mort, R Mark Beattie, Sarah Ennis

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (pIBD) is a chronic heterogeneous disorder. This study looks at the burden of common and rare coding mutations within 41 genes comprising the NOD signaling pathway in pIBD patients. 136 pIBD and 106 control samples underwent whole-exome sequencing. We compared the burden of common, rare and private mutation between these two groups using the SKAT-O test. An independent replication cohort of 33 cases and 111 controls was used to validate significant findings. We observed variation in 40 of 41 genes comprising the NOD signaling pathway. Four genes were significantly associated with disease in the discovery cohort …

Novel Genetic Variants Associated With Child Refractory Esophageal Stricture With Food Allergy By Exome Sequencing., Min Yang, Min Xiong, Huan Chen, Lanlan Geng, Peiyu Chen, Jing Xie, Shui Qing Ye, Ding-You Li, Sitang Gong

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Refractory esophageal stricture (RES) may be attributed to food allergy. Its etiology and pathogenesis are not fully understood. Identification of novel genetic variants associated with this disease by exome sequencing (exome-seq) may provide new mechanistic insights and new therapeutic targets.

METHODS: To identify new and novel disease-associating variants, whole-exome sequencing was performed on an Illumina NGS platform in three children with RES as well as food allergy.

RESULTS: A total of 91,024 variants were identified. By filtering out 'normal variants' against those of the 1000 Genomes Project, we identified 12,741 remaining variants which are potentially associated with RES plus …