title: Novel mutations in the CDKL5 gene, predicted effects and associated phenotypes.
abstract: It has been found that CDKL5 gene mutations are responsible for early-onset epilepsy and drug resistance. We screened a population of 92 patients with classic/atypical Rett syndrome, 17 Angelman/Angelman-like patients and six idiopathic autistic patients for CDKL5 mutations and exon deletions and identified seven novel mutations: six in the Rett subset and one in an Angelman patient. This last, an insertion in exon 11, c.903_904 dupGA, p.Leu302Aspfx49X, is associated with a relatively mild clinical presentation as the patient is the only one capable of sitting and walking alone. Of the six mutations, two are de novo missense changes affecting highly conserved aminoacid residues, c.215 T > C p.Ile72Thr and c.380A > G p.His127Arg (present in a mosaic condition) found in two girls with the most severe clinical presentation, while the remaining are the splicing c.145 + 2 T > C and c.2376 + 5G > A, the c.1648C > T p.Arg550X and the MPLA-identified c.162_99del261 mutation. RNA characterisation of four mutations revealed the aberrant transcript of the missense allele (case 2) and not the stop mutation (case 3), but also allowed the splicing mutation (case 1) and the c.-162_99del261 (case 4) to be categorised as truncating. The obtained data reinforce the view that a more severe phenotype is due more to an altered protein than haploinsufficiency. Furthermore, the mutational repertoire of the CDKL5 gene is shown to be expanded by testing patients with phenotypical overlap to Rett syndrome and applying multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Genetics Laboratory, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Via Zucchi 18-20095 Cusano Milanino (MI), Milan, Italy. s.russo@auxologico.it
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Russo
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marchi
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cogliati
authors.forename: M T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Bonati
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pintaudi
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Veneselli
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Saletti
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Balestrini
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ben-Zeev
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Larizza
mesh_terms: D017668:Age of Onset; D017204:Angelman Syndrome / Q000235:genetics; D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D010641:Phenotype; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000235:genetics*; D015518:Rett Syndrome / Q000235:genetics; D012640:Seizures / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases; C114482:CDKL5 protein, human