BACKGROUND

Genomic disorders caused by copy number variations (CNVs) are prevalent in patients with kidney disease; however, their contribution to chronic kidney failure (KF) of undetermined aetiology (uKF) is unclear. We screened patients with uKF aged 50 years or younger to establish the prevalence of causative CNVs.

METHODS

We enrolled patients with an onset of KF ≤50 years from suspected undetermined aetiology for initial review of medical records to exclude patients with clear-cut clinical or histopathological kidney diagnoses or patients with already established genetic kidney diseases. Next, we performed single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array-based CNV screening. All the detected CNVs were systematically classified and evaluated as possible causes of the patient's kidney disease. Patients with CNVs not explaining the kidney phenotype were additionally screened for causal variants in 540 genes using whole-genome sequencing.

RESULTS

We enrolled 172 patients, of whom 123 underwent SNP-array. Pathogenic CNVs corresponding to known genomic disorders were identified in 12 patients (9.8%). The identified genomic disorders provided a causative kidney diagnosis in three patients, all of whom had reached KF by age 18 years. The remaining nine patients had CNVs with unclear kidney disease causality. Subsequently, whole-genome sequencing provided a causative genetic diagnosis in an additional four patients, including two diagnostic sequence variants unrelated to the detected CNVs.

CONCLUSIONS

Genomic disorders were prevalent in this cohort with uKF, and causative CNVs were identified in 5 of 123 patients. Further studies combining the analysis of CNVs and sequence variants are needed to clarify the causal role of genomic disorders in kidney disease.