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Congenital heart disease (CHD), the most common type of birth defect, is still the leading non-infectious cause of infant morbidity and mortality in humans. Aggregating evidence demonstrates that genetic defects are involved in the pathogenesis of CHD. However, CHD is genetically heterogeneous and the genetic components underpinning CHD in an overwhelming majority of patients remain unclear. In the present study, the coding exons and flanking introns of the PITX2 gene, which encodes a paired-like homeodomain transcription factor 2essential for cardiovascular morphogenesis as well as maxillary facial development, was sequenced in 196 unrelated patients with CHD and subsequently in the mutation carrier's family members available. As a result, a novel heterozygous PITX2 mutation, p.Q102X for PITX2a, or p.Q148X for PITX2b, or p.Q155X for PITX2c, was identified in a family with endocardial cushion defect (ECD) and Axenfeld-Rieger syndrome (ARS). Genetic analysis of the pedigree showed that the nonsense mutation co-segregated with ECD and ARS transmitted in an autosomal dominant pattern with complete penetrance. The mutation was absent in 800 control chromosomes from an ethnically matched population. Functional analysis by using a dual-luciferase reporter assay system revealed that the mutant PITX2 had no transcriptional activity and that the mutation eliminated synergistic transcriptional activation between PITX2 and NKX2.5, another transcription factor pivotal for cardiogenesis. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the association of PITX2 loss-of-function mutation with increased susceptibility to ECD and ARS. The findings provide novel insight into the molecular mechanisms underpinning ECD and ARS, suggesting the potential implications for the antenatal prophylaxis and personalized treatment of CHD and ARS.
Pubmed ID: 25893250
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Database as central repository for both single base nucleotide substitutions and short deletion and insertion polymorphisms. Distinguishes report of how to assay SNP from use of that SNP with individuals and populations. This separation simplifies some issues of data representation. However, these initial reports describing how to assay SNP will often be accompanied by SNP experiments measuring allele occurrence in individuals and populations. Community can contribute to this resource.
View all literature mentionsThe goal of the project is to discover novel genes and mechanisms contributing to heart, lung and blood disorders by pioneering the application of next-generation sequencing of the protein coding regions of the human genome across diverse, richly-phenotyped populations and to share these datasets and findings with the scientific community to extend and enrich the diagnosis, management and treatment of heart, lung and blood disorders. The groups participating and collaborating in the NHLBI GO ESP include: Seattle GO - University of Washington, Seattle, WA Broad GO - Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA WHISP GO - Ohio State University Medical Center, Columbus, OH Lung GO - University of Washington, Seattle, WA WashU GO - Washington University, St. Louis, MO Heart GO - University of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville, VA ChargeS GO - University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston
View all literature mentionsMultiple sequence alignment method with reduced time and space complexity.Multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput. Data analysis service for multiple sequence comparison by log- expectation.
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