Pilot study of expanded newborn screening for 573 genes related to severe diseases in China: results from 1173 newborns
Abstract Background: Current newborn screening (NBS) in China is mainly aimed at detecting biochemical levels of metabolites in blood, which may generate false positive/negative results. Methods: We designed a next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel of 573 genes related to severe diseases and performed NBS for 1173 individuals, who had been screened for tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), phenylalanine (Phe), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), 17-α-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP) and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) as conducted in traditional biochemical NBS in September 2016. We compared their biochemical results with genetic variants and investigated the carrier frequencies of 77 genes related to disorders of MS/MS in these newborns. Results: Biochemical results showed that four newborns were positive for G6PD enzymatic assay (all males), the other biochemical values including MS/MS, Phe, TSH and 17-OHP were negative. Genetic analysis results showed that all the four newborns with positive G6PD values carried G6PD hemizygous mutations. Besides, NGS results revealed an individual (ID 84123) carrying two common SLC22A5 mutations (c.760C>T/p.R254* and c.1400C>G/p.S467C) in Chinese population which were verified in trans later, was biochemical negative in 2016. MS/MS results in June 2019 showed free carnitine deficiency, which was consistence with genetic analysis results. Carrier frequencies data suggested the top five genes with the highest carrier frequencies in these newborns were PAH (2.04%), ETFDH (1.24%), MMACHC (1.15%), SLC25A13 (0.98%), and GCDH (0.80%). Conclusion: Our study provides data that combine biochemical results with genetic variants in 1173 newborns. This is the first study that reveals carrier frequencies of 77 genes causing inherited metabolic diseases (IMDs) in China.