Molecular Mechanisms of Inherited Disease

Author(s):  
Janey L. Wiggs
Stroke ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroaki Nozaki ◽  
Taisuke Kato ◽  
Megumi Nihonmatsu ◽  
Yohei Saito ◽  
Ikuko Mizuta ◽  
...  

Introduction: Cerebral autosomal recessive arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CARASIL), an autosomal recessive inherited cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), involves severe leukoaraiosis, multiple lacunar infarcts, early-onset alopecia, and spondylosis deformans. High-temperature requirement serine peptidase A1 (HTRA1) gene mutations cause CARASIL by decreasing HTRA1 protease activity. Although CARASIL is a recessive inherited disease, heterozygous mutations in the HTRA1 gene were recently identified in 11 families with CSVD. Because CSVD is frequently observed in elderly individuals, it is unclear which mutants truly contribute to CSVD pathogenesis. Here, we found heterozygous mutations in the HTRA1 gene in individuals with CSVD and investigated the differences in biochemical characteristics between these mutant HTRA1s and mutant HTRA1s observed in homozygotes. Methods: We recruited 113 unrelated index patients with clinically diagnosed CSVD. The coding sequences of the HTRA1 gene were analyzed. We evaluated HTRA1 protease activities using casein assays and oligomeric HTRA1 formation using gel filtration chromatography. Results: We found 4 heterozygous missense mutations in the HTRA1 gene (p.G283E, p.P285L, p.R302Q, and p.T319I) in 6 patients from 113 unrelated index patients and in 2 siblings in 2 unrelated families with p.R302Q. These mutant HTRA1s showed markedly decreased protease activities and inhibited wild-type HTRA1 activity, whereas 2 of 3 mutant HTRA1s reported in CARASIL (A252T and V297M) did not inhibit wild- type HTRA1 activity. Wild-type HTRA1 forms trimers; however, G283E and T319I HTRA1, observed in manifesting heterozygotes, did not form trimers. P285L and R302Q HTRA1s formed trimers, but their mutations were located in domains that are important for trimer-associated HTRA1 activation; in contrast, A252T and V297M HTRA1s, which have been observed in CARASIL, also formed trimers but had mutations outside the domains important for trimer- associated HTRA1 activation. Conclusions: The mutant HTRA1s observed in manifesting heterozygotes might result in an impaired HTRA1 activation cascade of HTRA1 or be unable to form stable trimers.


Author(s):  
Jia Tang ◽  
Meihua Tan ◽  
Yihui Deng ◽  
Hui Tang ◽  
Haihong Shi ◽  
...  

Progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC) is an autosomal recessive inherited disease that accounts for 10%–15% childhood cholestasis and could lead to infant disability or death. There are three well-established types of PFIC (1–3), caused by mutations in the ATP8B1, ABCB11, and ABCB4 genes. Biallelic pathogenic variants in the tight junction protein 2 gene (TJP2) were newly reported as a cause for PFIC type 4; however, only a limited number of patients and undisputable variants have been reported for TJP2, and the underlying mechanism for PFIC 4 remains poorly understood. To explore the diagnostic yield of TJP2 analysis in suspected PFIC patients negative for the PFIC1–3 mutation, we designed a multiplex polymerase chain reaction-based next-generation sequencing method to analyze TJP2 gene variants in 267 PFIC patients and identified biallelic rare variants in three patients, including three known pathogenic variants and two novel variants in three patients. By using CRISPR-cas9 technology, we demonstrated that TJP2 c.1202A > G was pathogenic at least partially by increasing the expression and nuclear localization of TJP2 protein. With the minigene assay, we showed that TJP2 c.2668-11A > G was a new pathogenic variant by inducing abnormal splicing of TJP2 gene and translation of prematurely truncated TJP2 protein. Furthermore, knockdown of TJP2 protein by siRNA technology led to inhibition of cell proliferation, induction of apoptosis, dispersed F-actin, and disordered microfilaments in LO2 and HepG2celles. Global gene expression profiling of TJP2 knockdown LO2 cells and HepG2 cells identified the dysregulated genes involved in the regulation of actin cytoskeleton. Microtubule cytoskeleton genes were significantly downregulated in TJP2 knockdown cells. The results of this study demonstrate that TJP2 c.1202A > G and TJP2 c.2668-11A > G are two novel pathogenic variants and the cytoskeleton-related functions and pathways might be potential molecular pathogenesis for PFIC.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (Supplement_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
L Luo ◽  
Y Wang ◽  
Y Du ◽  
C Dong ◽  
A Ma ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Brugada syndrome (BrS) is an inherited disease which causes fatal arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Mutations in SCN5A gene, which encoding cardiac sodium channel (NaV1.5), are the most common genotype of BrS patients. Some SCN5A-related variants were reported to retain NaV1.5 in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) due to trafficking deficiency. MOG1 was previously reported to interact with NaV1.5 and increased sodium current (INa) through enhancing the trafficking. However, its molecular mechanisms are still unclear. Coat protein complex II (COPII) is responsible for the ER to Golgi transport. Sec23 forms the inner coat of COPII and participates in cargo proteins selection. Purpose To demonstrate that MOG1 rescues SCN5A-related variants by enhancing the forward trafficking through Sec23a-NaV1.5 interaction. Methods Site directed mutagenesis, immunofluorescence staining, biotinylation assay, Western blot analysis and whole-cell patch clamp recording were used. CRISPR/Cas9 was used to knock out Sec23a expression in HEK293 cells. Results We found that SCN5A-p.R104W was characterized as reduced NaV1.5 level and lack of INa. The variant SCN5A-p.R104W was mainly distributed in ER. MOG1 could rescue the total and surface expression of SCN5A-p.R104W but could not restore INa (Figure 1a). Considering that most patients are heterozygous, co-transfection of SCN5A-WT and SCN5A-p.R104W were obtained. We found MOG1 could increase both NaV1.5 level and INa of heterozygous expressed SCN5A-p.R104W. We further revealed an interaction between NaV1.5 and Sec23a by co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) assay. The interaction between NaV1.5 and Sec23a was increased by MOG1, which indicates that Sec23a participates in MOG1-mediated increase in NaV1.5 level (Figure 1b). Knockout of Sec23a reduced cell surface, but not total, NaV1.5 level (Figure 1c and 1d). Next, the Sec23a knockout HEK293 cells were co-transfected with SCN5A-p.R104W and pcDNA3 or MOG1. MOG1 could not increase SCN5A-p.R104W protein level in Sec23a knockout cells. Conclusion Our data demonstrated a novel mechanism that MOG1 restores the expression and function of SCN5A-p.R104W by enhancing its forward trafficking through Sec23a-NaV1.5 interaction. Figure 1 Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Natural Science Foundation of China


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vikas Pejaver ◽  
Jorge Urresti ◽  
Jose Lugo-Martinez ◽  
Kymberleigh A. Pagel ◽  
Guan Ning Lin ◽  
...  

AbstractIdentifying pathogenic variants and underlying functional alterations is challenging. To this end, we introduce MutPred2, a tool that improves the prioritization of pathogenic amino acid substitutions over existing methods, generates molecular mechanisms potentially causative of disease, and returns interpretable pathogenicity score distributions on individual genomes. Whilst its prioritization performance is state-of-the-art, a distinguishing feature of MutPred2 is the probabilistic modeling of variant impact on specific aspects of protein structure and function that can serve to guide experimental studies of phenotype-altering variants. We demonstrate the utility of MutPred2 in the identification of the structural and functional mutational signatures relevant to Mendelian disorders and the prioritization of de novo mutations associated with complex neurodevelopmental disorders. We then experimentally validate the functional impact of several variants identified in patients with such disorders. We argue that mechanism-driven studies of human inherited disease have the potential to significantly accelerate the discovery of clinically actionable variants.


2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene J. Bustad ◽  
Marta Vorland ◽  
Eva Rønneseth ◽  
Sverre Sandberg ◽  
Aurora Martinez ◽  
...  

The autosomal dominantly inherited disease AIP (acute intermittent porphyria) is caused by mutations in HMBS [hydroxymethylbilane synthase; also known as PBG (porphobilinogen) deaminase], the third enzyme in the haem biosynthesis pathway. Enzyme-intermediates with increasing number of PBG molecules are formed during the catalysis of HMBS. In this work, we studied the two uncharacterized mutants K132N and V215E comparative with wt (wild-type) HMBS and to the previously reported AIP-associated mutants R116W, R167W and R173W. These mainly present defects in conformational stability (R116W), enzyme kinetics (R167W) or both (R173W). A combination of native PAGE, CD, DSF (differential scanning fluorimetry) and ion-exchange chromatography was used to study conformational stability and activity of the recombinant enzymes. We also investigated the distribution of intermediates corresponding to specific elongation stages. It is well known that the thermostability of HMBS increases when the DPM (dipyrromethane) cofactor binds to the apoenzyme and the holoenzyme is formed. Interestingly, a decrease in thermal stability was measured concomitant to elongation of the pyrrole chain, indicating a loosening of the structure prior to product release. No conformational or kinetic defect was observed for the K132N mutant, whereas V215E presented lower conformational stability and probably a perturbed elongation process. This is in accordance with the high association of V215E with AIP. Our results contribute to interpret the molecular mechanisms for dysfunction of HMBS mutants and to establish genotype–phenotype relations for AIP.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Krassowski ◽  
Marta Paczkowska ◽  
Kim Cullion ◽  
Tina Huang ◽  
Irakli Dzneladze ◽  
...  

AbstractInterpretation of genetic variation is required for understanding genotype-phenotype associations, mechanisms of inherited disease, and drivers of cancer. Millions of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in human genomes are known and thousands are associated with disease. An estimated 20% of disease-associated missense SNVs are located in protein sites of post-translational modifications (PTMs), chemical modifications of amino acids that extend protein function. ActiveDriverDB is a comprehensive human proteo-genomics database that annotates disease mutations and population variants using PTMs. We integrated >385,000 published PTM sites with ∼3.8 million missense SNVs from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the ClinVar database of disease genes, and inter-individual variation from human genome sequencing projects. The database includes interaction networks of proteins, upstream enzymes such as kinases, and drugs targeting these enzymes. We also predicted network-rewiring impact of mutations by analyzing gains and losses of kinase-bound sequence motifs. ActiveDriverDB provides detailed visualization, filtering, browsing and searching options for studying PTM-associated SNVs. Users can upload mutation datasets interactively and use our application programming interface for pipelines. Integrative analysis of SNVs and PTMs helps decipher molecular mechanisms of phenotypes and disease, as exemplified by case studies of disease genes TP53, BRCA2 and VHL. The open-source database is available at https://www.ActiveDriverDB.org.


Author(s):  
David P. Bazett-Jones ◽  
Mark L. Brown

A multisubunit RNA polymerase enzyme is ultimately responsible for transcription initiation and elongation of RNA, but recognition of the proper start site by the enzyme is regulated by general, temporal and gene-specific trans-factors interacting at promoter and enhancer DNA sequences. To understand the molecular mechanisms which precisely regulate the transcription initiation event, it is crucial to elucidate the structure of the transcription factor/DNA complexes involved. Electron spectroscopic imaging (ESI) provides the opportunity to visualize individual DNA molecules. Enhancement of DNA contrast with ESI is accomplished by imaging with electrons that have interacted with inner shell electrons of phosphorus in the DNA backbone. Phosphorus detection at this intermediately high level of resolution (≈lnm) permits selective imaging of the DNA, to determine whether the protein factors compact, bend or wrap the DNA. Simultaneously, mass analysis and phosphorus content can be measured quantitatively, using adjacent DNA or tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) as mass and phosphorus standards. These two parameters provide stoichiometric information relating the ratios of protein:DNA content.


Author(s):  
G-A. Keller ◽  
S. J. Gould ◽  
S. Subramani ◽  
S. Krisans

Subcellular compartments within eukaryotic cells must each be supplied with unique sets of proteins that must be directed to, and translocated across one or more membranes of the target organelles. This transport is mediated by cis- acting targeting signals present within the imported proteins. The following is a chronological account of a series of experiments designed and carried out in an effort to understand how proteins are targeted to the peroxisomal compartment.-We demonstrated by immunocryoelectron microscopy that the enzyme luciferase is a peroxisomal enzyme in the firefly lantern. -We expressed the cDNA encoding firefly luciferase in mammalian cells and demonstrated by immunofluorescence that the enzyme was transported into the peroxisomes of the transfected cells. -Using deletions, linker insertions, and gene fusion to identify regions of luciferase involved in its transport to the peroxisomes, we demonstrated that luciferase contains a peroxisomal targeting signal (PTS) within its COOH-terminal twelve amino acid.


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