The overall findings from the research point strongly to bullying activity being essentially 'learned behaviour' within the workplace rather than any predominantly psychological deficit within individual perpetrators and targets.

Urofacial syndrome (UFS) (or Ochoa syndrome) is an autosomal-recessive disease characterized by congenital urinary bladder dysfunction, associated with a significant risk of kidney failure, and an abnormal facial expression upon smiling, laughing, and crying. We report that a subset of UFS-affected individuals have biallelic mutations in LRIG2, encoding leucine-rich repeats and immunoglobulin-like domains 2, a protein implicated in neural cell signaling and tumorigenesis. Importantly, we have demonstrated that rare variants in LRIG2 might be relevant to nonsyndromic bladder disease. We have previously shown that UFS is also caused by mutations in HPSE2, encoding heparanase-2. LRIG2 and heparanase-2 were immunodetected in nerve fascicles growing between muscle bundles within the human fetal bladder, directly implicating both molecules in neural development in the lower urinary tract.

Urinary voiding dysfunction in childhood, manifesting as incontinence, dysuria, and urinary frequency, is a common condition. Urofacial syndrome (UFS) is a rare autosomal recessive disease characterized by facial grimacing when attempting to smile and failure of the urinary bladder to void completely despite a lack of anatomical bladder outflow obstruction or overt neurological damage. UFS individuals often have reflux of infected urine from the bladder to the upper renal tract, with a risk of kidney damage and renal failure. Whole-genome SNP mapping in one affected individual defined an autozygous region of 16 Mb on chromosome 10q23-q24, within which a 10 kb deletion encompassing exons 8 and 9 of HPSE2 was identified. Homozygous exonic deletions, nonsense mutations, and frameshift mutations in five further unrelated families confirmed HPSE2 as the causative gene for UFS. Mutations were not identified in four additional UFS patients, indicating genetic heterogeneity. We show that HPSE2 is expressed in the fetal and adult central nervous system, where it might be implicated in controlling facial expression and urinary voiding, and also in bladder smooth muscle, consistent with a role in renal tract morphology and function. Our findings have broader implications for understanding the genetic basis of lower renal tract malformations and voiding dysfunction.