Publications by authors named "Breckpot J"

Background: A subset of developmental disorders (DD) is characterized by disease-specific genome-wide methylation changes. These episignatures inform on the underlying pathogenic mechanisms and can be used to assess the pathogenicity of genomic variants as well as confirm clinical diagnoses. Currently, the detection of these episignature requires the use of indirect methylation profiling methodologies.

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Hyperparathyroidism-jaw tumor syndrome is a rare form of syndromic primary hyperparathyroidism. We describe a young female with a history of common precursor B acute lymphoblastic leukaemia who was diagnosed with overt primary hyperparathyroidism due to a pathogenic CDC73 variant (c.25C > T).

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Purpose: Autosomal Dominant Hypocalcemia type 1 (ADH1), caused by gain-of-function variants in the calcium-sensing receptor (CASR), is characterized by a variable degree of hypocalcemia and hypercalciuria with inappropriately low PTH. The clinical spectrum is broad, ranging from being asymptomatic to presenting with severe clinical features of hypocalcemia and end-organ damage such as nephrolithiasis and intracerebral calcifications. Although the underlying pathophysiology is different, ADH1 patients are often managed as patients with 'classical' primary hypoparathyroidism, possibly leading to (exacerbation of) hypercalciuria.

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Purpose: Individuals with proximal 16p11.2 copy number variants (CNVs), either deletions (16p11.2DS) or duplications (16p11.

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Background: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common congenital anomaly. Almost 90% of isolated cases have an unexplained genetic etiology after clinical testing. Non-canonical splice variants that disrupt mRNA splicing through the loss or creation of exon boundaries are not routinely captured and/or evaluated by standard clinical genetic tests.

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Background: Despite the established knowledge that recurrent copy number variants (CNVs) at the 16p11.2 locus BP4-BP5 confer risk for behavioural and language difficulties, limited research has been conducted on the association between behavioural and social-communicative profiles. The current study aims to further delineate the prevalence, nature and severity of, and the association between, behavioural and social-communicative features of school-aged children with 16p11.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to explore the relationship between clinical features and pathogenic gene variants in patients with Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (PCD).
  • Conducted at the University Hospitals Leuven, it included 74 patients with genetically confirmed PCD, focusing on common genes like DNAH11 and DNAH5, and analyzing their genotype, ultrastructural data, and clinical characteristics.
  • Findings indicated that certain clinical features differed significantly between patients with DNAH11 and DNAH5 variants, but other factors like lung function and microbiology did not show significant differences, suggesting some correlations exist in clinical characteristics based on genotypes.
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Purpose: Oral-facial-digital (OFD) syndromes are genetically heterogeneous developmental disorders, caused by pathogenic variants in genes involved in primary cilia formation and function. We identified a previously undescribed type of OFD with brain anomalies, ranging from alobar holoprosencephaly to pituitary anomalies, in 6 unrelated families.

Methods: Exome sequencing of affected probands was supplemented with alternative splicing analysis in patient and control lymphoblastoid and fibroblast cell lines, and primary cilia structure analysis in patient fibroblasts.

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We report the fatal case of a 20-year-old woman with refractory adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) accompanied by fulminant macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) and atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS). Anakinra and tocilizumab temporarily controlled AOSD. In 2021, she presented to ICU with generalized tonic-clonic seizure, lymphocytic aseptic meningitis, and acute kidney injury.

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Article Synopsis
  • The 22q11.2 deletion syndrome is a genetic condition that's common and often linked to heart problems. Prenatal testing for this condition is becoming more common.
  • This study looked at how well babies do when they are diagnosed before they are born versus after they are born.
  • They found that, overall, the chance of dying in the first year didn't change much between those diagnosed early or late, but serious heart problems and when the baby was born affected the results.
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Anomalous pulmonary venous return (APVR) frequently occurs with other congenital heart defects (CHDs) or extra-cardiac anomalies. While some genetic causes have been identified, the optimal approach to genetic testing in individuals with APVR remains uncertain, and the etiology of most cases of APVR is unclear. Here, we analyzed molecular data from 49 individuals to determine the diagnostic yield of clinical exome sequencing (ES) for non-isolated APVR.

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Preeclampsia (PE) is a leading cause for peripartal morbidity, especially if developing early in gestation. To enable prophylaxis in the prevention of PE, pregnancies at risk of PE must be identified early-in the first trimester. To identify at-risk pregnancies we profiled methylomes of plasma-derived, cell-free DNA from 498 pregnant women, of whom about one-third developed early-onset PE.

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Congenital heart disease (CHD) affecting the conotruncal region of the heart, occurs in 40-50% of patients with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS).

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Aims: Diagnosis of Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is based on prolongation of the QT interval corrected for heart rate (QTc) on surface ECG and genotyping. However, up to 25% of genotype positive patients have a normal QTc interval. We recently showed that individualized QT interval (QTi) derived from 24 h holter data and defined as the QT value at the intersection of an RR interval of 1,000 ms with the linear regression line fitted through QT-RR data points of each individual patient was superior over QTc to predict mutation status in LQTS families.

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Triplication of chromosomal region 1p36.3 is a rare genomic rearrangement. In this report, we delineate the phenotypic spectrum associated with 1p36.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study identifies and compares the clinical and MRI features of truncating variants in Titin (TTNtv) and Filamin C (FLNCtv), revealing 3.6% and 12.3% occurrences respectively in the Belgian population.
  • FLNCtv carriers mostly present with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM), while TTNtv carriers exhibit either ACM or dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) phenotypes, with both groups experiencing non-sustained Ventricular Tachycardia.
  • Cardiac MRI shows TTNtv patients have lower Left Ventricular ejection fraction but limited fibrosis, while FLNCtv patients display significant myocardial fibrosis with a ring-like pattern.
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Although it is known that copy number variants (CNVs) on chromosome 22, such as 22q11.2 deletion (22q11.2DS) and 22q11.

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Diagnosis of a chromosome 22q11.2 microdeletion and its associated deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS) is optimally made early.

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Au-Kline syndrome (AKS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with multiple malformations and a characteristic facial gestalt. The first individuals ascertained carried de novo loss-of-function (LoF) variants in HNRNPK. Here, we report 32 individuals with AKS (26 previously unpublished), including 13 with de novo missense variants.

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The vacuolar H+-ATPase is an enzymatic complex that functions in an ATP-dependent manner to pump protons across membranes and acidify organelles, thereby creating the proton/pH gradient required for membrane trafficking by several different types of transporters. We describe heterozygous point variants in ATP6V0C, encoding the c-subunit in the membrane bound integral domain of the vacuolar H+-ATPase, in 27 patients with neurodevelopmental abnormalities with or without epilepsy. Corpus callosum hypoplasia and cardiac abnormalities were also present in some patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • Non-invasive prenatal testing can identify common trisomies (13, 18, 21) and also rare autosomal trisomies (RATs), which occur at about half the frequency of the common ones in large populations.
  • There is a lack of extensive studies and clear clinical guidelines to help healthcare professionals and patients manage cases involving RATs effectively.
  • This review consolidates knowledge on RATs, discussing their incidence, origins, related risks, and emphasizes the need for further research in this area for better prenatal management.
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