Division of Evolution, Infection and Genomics, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Manchester, UK.
Clin Genet. 2022 Feb;101(2):255-259. doi: 10.1111/cge.14082. Epub 2021 Nov 5.
The developmental disorder Burn-McKeown Syndrome (BMKS) is characterised by choanal atresia and specific craniofacial features. BMKS is caused by biallelic variants in the pre-messenger RNA splicing factor TXNL4A. Most patients have a loss-of-function variant in trans with a 34-base pair (bp) deletion (type 1 Δ34) in the promoter region. Here, we identified two patients with BMKS. One individual has a TXNL4A c.93_94delCC, p.His32Argfs *21 variant combined with a type 1 Δ34 promoter deletion. The other has an intronic TXNL4A splice site variant (c.258-3C>G) and a type 1 Δ34 promoter deletion. We show the c.258-3C>G variant and a previously reported c.258-2A>G variant, cause skipping of the final exon of TXNL4A in a minigene splicing assay. Furthermore, we identify putative transcription factor binding sites within the 56 bp of the TXNL4A promoter affected by the type 1 and type 2 Δ34 and use dual luciferase assays to identify a 22 bp repeated motif essential for TXNL4A expression within this promoter region. We propose that additional variants affecting critical transcription factor binding nucleotides within the 22 bp repeated motif could be relevant to BMKS aetiology. Finally, our data emphasises the need to analyse the non-coding sequence in individuals where a single likely pathogenic coding variant is identified in an autosomal recessive disorder consistent with the clinical presentation.
发育障碍性 Burn-McKeown 综合征(BMKS)的特征是后鼻孔闭锁和特定的颅面特征。BMKS 是由 pre-messenger RNA 剪接因子 TXNL4A 的双等位基因变异引起的。大多数患者在反式中具有功能丧失性变异,在启动子区域有 34 个碱基对(bp)缺失(类型 1 Δ34)。在这里,我们鉴定了两名患有 BMKS 的患者。一个个体携带有 TXNL4A c.93_94delCC,p.His32Argfs*21 变异,与类型 1 Δ34 启动子缺失相结合。另一个个体携带有内含子 TXNL4A 剪接位点变异(c.258-3C>G)和类型 1 Δ34 启动子缺失。我们在一个小型基因剪接实验中显示 c.258-3C>G 变异和之前报道的 c.258-2A>G 变异导致 TXNL4A 的最后一个外显子跳过。此外,我们在受类型 1 和类型 2 Δ34 影响的 TXNL4A 启动子的 56bp 内鉴定出潜在的转录因子结合位点,并使用双荧光素酶测定法鉴定出该启动子区域内对 TXNL4A 表达至关重要的 22bp 重复基序。我们提出,在 22bp 重复基序内影响关键转录因子结合核苷酸的其他变异可能与 BMKS 的发病机制有关。最后,我们的数据强调了在常染色体隐性遗传疾病中,当在符合临床表现的个体中鉴定出单一可能的致病性编码变异时,需要分析非编码序列。