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- Morison, LD, et al.
(författare)
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In-depth characterisation of a cohort of individuals with missense and loss-of-function variants disrupting FOXP2
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of medical genetics. - : BMJ. - 1468-6244 .- 0022-2593. ; 60:6, s. 597-607
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Heterozygous disruptions ofFOXP2were the first identified molecular cause for severe speech disorder: childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), and yet few cases have been reported, limiting knowledge of the condition.MethodsHere we phenotyped 28 individuals from 17 families with pathogenicFOXP2-only variants (12 loss-of-function, five missense variants; 14 males; aged 2 to 62 years). Health and development (cognitive, motor, social domains) were examined, including speech and language outcomes with the first cross-linguistic analysis of English and German.ResultsSpeech disorders were prevalent (23/25, 92%) and CAS was most common (22/25, 88%), with similar speech presentations across English and German. Speech was still impaired in adulthood, and some speech sounds (eg, ‘th’, ‘r’, ‘ch’, ‘j’) were never acquired. Language impairments (21/25, 84%) ranged from mild to severe. Comorbidities included feeding difficulties in infancy (10/26, 38%), fine (13/26, 50%) and gross (13/26, 50%) motor impairment, anxiety (5/27, 19%), depression (6/27, 22%) and sleep disturbance (10/24, 42%). Physical features were common (22/27, 81%) but with no consistent pattern. Cognition ranged from average to mildly impaired and was incongruent with language ability; for example, seven participants with severe language disorder had average non-verbal cognition.ConclusionsAlthough we identify an increased prevalence of conditions like anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance, we confirm that the consequences ofFOXP2dysfunction remain relatively specific to speech disorder, as compared with other recently identified monogenic conditions associated with CAS. Thus, our findings reinforce thatFOXP2provides a valuable entry point for examining the neurobiological bases of speech disorder.
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- Hellwig, Malte, et al.
(författare)
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TCF4 (E2-2) harbors tumor suppressive functions in SHH medulloblastoma
- 2019
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Ingår i: Acta Neuropathologica. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0001-6322 .- 1432-0533. ; 137:4, s. 657-673
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The TCF4 gene encodes for the basic helix–loop–helix transcription factor 4 (TCF4), which plays an important role in the development of the central nervous system (CNS). Haploinsufficiency of TCF4 was found to cause Pitt-Hopkins syndrome (PTHS), a severe neurodevelopmental disorder. Recently, the screening of a large cohort of medulloblastoma (MB), a highly aggressive embryonal brain tumor, revealed almost 20% of adult patients with MB of the Sonic hedgehog (SHH) subtype carrying somatic TCF4 mutations. Interestingly, many of these mutations have previously been detected as germline mutations in patients with PTHS. We show here that overexpression of wild-type TCF4 in vitro significantly suppresses cell proliferation in MB cells, whereas mutant TCF4 proteins do not to the same extent. Furthermore, RNA sequencing revealed significant upregulation of multiple well-known tumor suppressors upon expression of wild-type TCF4. In vivo, a prenatal knockout of Tcf4 in mice caused a significant increase in apoptosis accompanied by a decreased proliferation and failed migration of cerebellar granule neuron precursor cells (CGNP), which are thought to be the cells of origin for SHH MB. In contrast, postnatal in vitro and in vivo knockouts of Tcf4 with and without an additional constitutive activation of the SHH pathway led to significantly increased proliferation of CGNP or MB cells. Finally, publicly available data from human MB show that relatively low expression levels of TCF4 significantly correlate with a worse clinical outcome. These results not only point to time-specific roles of Tcf4 during cerebellar development but also suggest a functional linkage between TCF4 mutations and the formation of SHH MB, proposing that TCF4 acts as a tumor suppressor during postnatal stages of cerebellar development.
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- Lundberg, Jon O., et al.
(författare)
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Nitrate and nitrite in biology, nutrition and therapeutics
- 2009
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Ingår i: Nature Chemical Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1552-4450 .- 1552-4469. ; 5:12, s. 865-869
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Inorganic nitrate and nitrite from endogenous or dietary sources are metabolized in vivo to nitric oxide (NO) and other bioactive nitrogen oxides. The nitrate-nitrite-NO pathway is emerging as an important mediator of blood flow regulation, cell signaling, energetics and tissue responses to hypoxia. The latest advances in our understanding of the biochemistry, physiology and therapeutics of nitrate, nitrite and NO were discussed during a recent 2-day meeting at the Nobel Forum, Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
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- Rodriguez-Palmero, Agusti, et al.
(författare)
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DLG4-related synaptopathy : a new rare brain disorder
- 2021
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Ingår i: Genetics in Medicine. - : Elsevier BV. - 1098-3600 .- 1530-0366. ; 23:5, s. 888-899
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PurposePostsynaptic density protein-95 (PSD-95), encoded by DLG4, regulates excitatory synaptic function in the brain. Here we present the clinical and genetic features of 53 patients (42 previously unpublished) with DLG4 variants.MethodsThe clinical and genetic information were collected through GeneMatcher collaboration. All the individuals were investigated by local clinicians and the gene variants were identified by clinical exome/genome sequencing.ResultsThe clinical picture was predominated by early onset global developmental delay, intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, and attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder, all of which point to a brain disorder. Marfanoid habitus, which was previously suggested to be a characteristic feature of DLG4-related phenotypes, was found in only nine individuals and despite some overlapping features, a distinct facial dysmorphism could not be established. Of the 45 different DLG4 variants, 39 were predicted to lead to loss of protein function and the majority occurred de novo (four with unknown origin). The six missense variants identified were suggested to lead to structural or functional changes by protein modeling studies.ConclusionThe present study shows that clinical manifestations associated with DLG4 overlap with those found in other neurodevelopmental disorders of synaptic dysfunction; thus, we designate this group of disorders as DLG4-related synaptopathy.
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