A neonatal encephalopathy with seizures in standard poodle dogs with a missense mutation in the canine ortholog of ATF2.
Neonatal encephalopathy with seizures (NEWS) is a previously undescribed autosomal recessive disease of standard poodle puppies. Affected puppies are small and weak at birth. Many die in their first week of life. Those surviving past 1 week develop ataxia, a whole-body tremor, and, by 4 to 6 weeks of age, severe generalized clonic-tonic seizures. None have survived to 7 weeks of age. Cerebella from affected puppies were reduced in size and often contained dysplastic foci consisting of clusters of intermixed granule and Purkinje neurons. We used deoxyribonucleic acid samples from related standard poodles to map the NEWS locus to a 2.87-Mb segment of CFA36, which contains the canine ortholog of ATF2. This gene encodes activating transcription factor 2 (ATF-2), which participates in the cellular responses to a wide variety of stimuli. We amplified and sequenced all coding regions of canine ATF2 from a NEWS-affected puppy and identified a T > G transversion that predicts a methionine-to-arginine missense mutation at amino acid position 51. Methionine-51 lies within a hydrophobic docking site for mitogen-activated protein kinases that activate ATF-2 so the arginine substitution is likely to interfere with ATF-2 activation. All 20 NEWS-affected puppies in the standard poodle family were homozygous for the mutant G allele. The 58 clinically normal family members were either G/T heterozygotes or homozygous for the ancestral T allele. There are no previous reports of spontaneous ATF2 mutations in people or animals; however, atf2-knockout mice have cerebellar lesions that are similar to those in puppies with NEWS.
Chen
Xuhua
X
Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, University of Missouri, 322 Connaway Hall, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA, johnsongs@missouri.edu.
Johnson
Gary S
GS
Schnabel
Robert D
RD
Taylor
Jeremy F
JF
Johnson
Gayle C
GC
Parker
Heidi G
HG
Patterson
Edward E
EE
Katz
Martin L
ML
Awano
Tomoyuki
T
Khan
Shahwanaz
S
O'Brien
Dennis P
DP
D051698:Activating Transcription Factor 2 / Q000737:chemistry / Q000172:deficiency / Q000235:genetics*; D000483:Alleles; D019943:Amino Acid Substitution; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001483:Base Sequence; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000662:veterinary*; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D004283:Dog Diseases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D004285:Dogs; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D006239:Haplotypes; D006579:Heterozygote; D006720:Homozygote; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008715:Methionine / Q000737:chemistry; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D020125:Mutation, Missense; D010375:Pedigree; D012640:Seizures / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000662:veterinary*; D013045:Species Specificity
C497105:ATF2 protein, human; D051698:Activating Transcription Factor 2; C497106:Atf2 protein, mouse; D017931:DNA Primers; D008715:Methionine