Publications by authors named "Abeer Almostafa"

Heterotaxy (HTX) is a group of clinical conditions with a shared pathology of dislocation of one or more organs along the left-right axis. The etiology of HTX is tremendously heterogeneous spanning environmental factors, chromosomal aberrations, mono/oligogenic variants, and complex inheritance. However, in the vast majority of cases, the etiology of HTX remains elusive.

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Article Synopsis
  • Childhood-onset thoracic aortic dilatation (TAD) is primarily a genetic condition with dominant inheritance, and this study investigates its correlation with consanguinity in a specific population.
  • Among the 33 children studied, a significant 65% had positive genetic tests, revealing mutations in multiple genes, including a notable homozygous variant in the EFEMP2 gene.
  • The findings emphasize the importance of genetic screening for early detection and intervention, which can lead to positive outcomes, as all patients in the study are currently alive despite the severe nature of their condition.
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Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD), an autosomal recessive inborn error of metabolism due to defects in the branched-chain α-ketoacid dehydrogenase (BCKD) complex, is commonly observed among other inherited metabolic disorders in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This report presents the results of mutation analysis of three of the four genes encoding the BCKD complex in 52 biochemically diagnosed MSUD patients originating from Saudi Arabia. The 25 mutations (20 novel) detected spanned across the entire coding regions of the , and genes.

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Defects in the human gene encoding methylmalonyl-CoA mutase enzyme (MCM) give rise to a rare autosomal recessive inherited disorder of propionate metabolism termed mut methylmalonic acidemia (MMA). Patients with mut MMA have been divided into two subgroups: mut with complete loss of MCM activity and mut with residual activity in the presence of adenosylcobalamin (AdoCbl). The disease typically presents in the first weeks or months of life and is clinically characterized by recurrent vomiting, metabolic acidosis, hyperammonemia, lethargy, poor feeding, failure to thrive and neurological deficit.

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Donnai-Barrow syndrome (DBS; MIM 222448) is characterized by typical craniofacial anomalies (major hypertelorism with bulging eyes), high grade myopia, deafness and low molecular weight proteinuria. The disorder results from mutations in the low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 2 gene LRP2 that maps to chromosome 2q31.1.

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Congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) are an expanding group of genetic diseases affecting protein and lipid glycosylation. These disorders have a variable presentation and are individually rare. DPAGT1-CDG is a protein N-glycosylation disorder with epilepsy, development delay, severe hypotonia, and dysmorphy, reported in a single patient.

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Purpose: Copy number variants are an important source of human genome diversity. The widespread distribution of hemizygous copy number variants in the DNA of healthy humans suggests that haploinsufficiency is largely tolerated. However, little is known about the extent to which corresponding nullizygosity (two-copy deletion) is similarly tolerated.

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Background: Hearing loss is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous disorder. Mutations in the DFNB1 locus have been reported to be the most common cause of autosomal recessive non-syndromic hearing loss worldwide. Apart from DFNB1, many other loci and their underlying genes have also been identified and the basis of our study was to provide a comprehensive introduction to the delineation of the molecular basis of non-syndromic hearing loss in the Saudi Arabian population.

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