SPG7 mutations account for less than 5% of hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) families compatible with autosomal recessive inheritance. Cerebellar signs or cerebellar atrophy on brain imaging were the most frequent additional features in patients with SPG7 HSP. Rare nucleotide variants in SPG7 are frequent, complicating routine diagnosis.
Precision medicine requires the translation of basic biological understanding to medical insights, mainly applied to characterization of each unique patient. In many clinical settings, this requires tools that can be broadly used to identify pathology and risks. Patients often present to the intensive care unit with broad phenotypes, including multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) resulting from infection, trauma, or other disease processes. Etiology and outcomes are unique to individuals, making it difficult to cohort patients with MODS, but presenting a prime target for testing/developing tools for precision medicine. Using multitime point whole blood (cellular/acellular) total transcriptomics in 27 patients, we highlight the promise of simultaneously mapping viral/bacterial load, cell composition, tissue damage biomarkers, balance between syndromic biology versus environmental response, and unique biological insights in each patient using a single platform measurement. Integration of a transcriptome workflow yielded unexpected insights into the complex interplay between host genetics and viral/bacterial specific mechanisms, highlighted by a unique case of virally induced genetics (VIG) within one of these 27 patients. The power of RNA-Seq to study unique patient biology while investigating environmental contributions can be a critical tool moving forward for translational sciences applied to precision medicine.
Larsen syndrome [OMIM 150 250] is an autosomal dominant skeletal dysplasia characterized by craniofacial features, large-joint dislocations and abnormalities of the extremities. Craniofacial anomalies include hypertelorism, prominence of the forehead, a depressed nasal bridge and a flattened midface. Dislocation of the large joints (knees, hips, elbows, tibio-tarsal) including anterior dislocation of at least one of the knees are the main features. The limb abnormalities include a very characteristic tapering aspect of the distal humerus. Other occasionally seen findings include short stature, cleft palate, and extraskeletal manifestations include bilateral testicular ectopy, retinal lesions and bilateral macular dysplasia, deafness, cardiac abnormalities (ventricular septal defect) and tracheomalacia.Heterozygosity for mutations in the gene encoding the filamin B (FLNB) located at chromosome 3p14.3 have been identified in a wide spectrum of osteochon-drodysplasias, including Larsen syndrome, atelosteogenesis type III (AOIII) and I, boomerang dysplasia and spondylocarpotarsal syndrome (Krakow et al., 2004). Filamin B is a cytoskeletal protein essential in modulation of the cellular cytoskeleton and has functions in signal transduction, cell division motility and transport of small molecules.Diagnosis of Larsen syndrome is usually made in the postnatal period. The prognosis is highly variable and occasionally lethal. Complications include multiple orthopedic abnormalities, instability of the cervical spine, pulmonary hypoplasia and neonatal tracheomalacia. Prenatal
Precision medicine requires the translation of basic biological understanding to medical insights, mainly applied to characterization of each unique patient. In many clinical settings, this requires tools that can be broadly used to identify pathology and risks. Patients often present to the intensive care unit with broad phenotypes, including multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) resulting from infection, trauma, or other disease processes. Etiology and outcomes are unique to individuals, making it difficult to cohort patients with MODS, but presenting a prime target for testing/developing tools for precision medicine. Using multi-time point whole blood (cellular/acellular) total transcriptomics in 27 patients, we highlight the promise of simultaneously mapping viral/bacterial load, cell composition, tissue damage biomarkers, balance between syndromic biology vs. environmental response, and unique biological insights in each patient using a single platform measurement. Integration of a transcriptome workflow yielded unexpected insights into the complex interplay between host genetics and viral/bacterial specific mechanisms, highlighted by a unique case of virally induced genetics (VIG) within one of these 27 patients. The power of RNAseq to study unique patient biology while investigating environmental contributions can be a critical tool moving forward for translational sciences applied to precision medicine.
Predicting genotype‐to‐phenotype correlations from genomic variants has been challenging, particularly for genes that have a complex balance of dominant and recessive inheritance for phenotypes. Variants in NMDA receptor components GRIN1, GRIN2A, and GRIN2B cause a myriad of dominant disease phenotypes, with the most common being epilepsy and autism spectrum disorder. Starting from the analysis of a variant of uncertain significance (VUS, GRIN2A G760S), we realized the need for tools to map dominant variants for the components of the NMDA receptor. Some variants within GRIN1, GRIN2A, and GRIN2B exert dominant epilepsy and developmental delay, yet other amino acid variants are conserved and predicted to alter protein function but do not have dominant phenotypes. Common variant annotation tools are not powered to determine pathogenic dominant outcomes. To address this gap, we integrated sequence and structural analyses for GRIN1, GRIN2A, and GRIN2B. Using this approach, we determined that paralog homology mapping and topology can segregate dominant variants, with an elevation of intermolecular contacts between the subunits. Furthermore, demonstrating the general utility of our methodology, we show that 25 VUS within ClinVar also reach a dominant variant annotation, including the GRIN2A G760S variant. Our work suggests paralog homology and protein topology as a powerful strategy within the receptor complex to resolve dominant genetic variants relative to variants that would fit a recessive inheritance, requiring two damaging variants. These strategies should be tested in additional dominant genetic disorders to determine the broader utility.
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