Publications by authors named "Claudia Bianchini"

E3 ubiquitin ligases have been linked to developmental diseases including autism, Angelman syndrome (UBE3A), and Johanson-Blizzard syndrome (JBS) (UBR1). Here, we report variants in the E3 ligase UBR5 in 29 individuals presenting with a neurodevelopmental syndrome that includes developmental delay, autism, intellectual disability, epilepsy, movement disorders, and/or genital anomalies. Their phenotype is distinct from JBS due to the absence of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency and the presence of autism, epilepsy, and, in some probands, a movement disorder.

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Context: Cytochrome C oxidase (COX) is the fourth component of the respiratory chain and is located within the internal membrane of mitochondria. COX deficiency causes an inherited mitochondrial disease with significant genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity. Four clinical subtypes have been identified, each with distinct phenotypes and genetic variants.

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Biallelic CNTNAP2 variants have been associated with Pitt-Hopkins-like syndrome. We describe six novel and one previously reported patients from six independent families and review the literature including 64 patients carrying biallelic CNTNAP2 variants. Initial reports highlighted intractable focal seizures and the failure of epilepsy surgery in children, but subsequent reports did not expand on this aspect.

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Article Synopsis
  • Dynamin 1 is a protein that plays a key role in the release of neurotransmitters at synapses, and mutations in its gene (DNM1) can lead to severe epilepsy and other developmental issues.* -
  • A case study of a 36-year-old man with autism and mild seizures revealed a new genetic mutation (c.1994T>C) in the GTPase effector domain of the DNM1 gene, highlighting a unique phenotype differing from typical infantile epilepsy cases.* -
  • Structural analysis indicates that this mutation disrupts important interactions within the dynamin-1 protein, expanding the understanding of how different mutations in the DNM1 gene can manifest in varying neurological conditions.*
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Identifying genetic risk factors for highly heterogeneous disorders like epilepsy remains challenging. Here, we present the largest whole-exome sequencing study of epilepsy to date, with >54,000 human exomes, comprising 20,979 deeply phenotyped patients from multiple genetic ancestry groups with diverse epilepsy subtypes and 33,444 controls, to investigate rare variants that confer disease risk. These analyses implicate seven individual genes, three gene sets, and four copy number variants at exome-wide significance.

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Objective: To report longitudinal clinical, EEG, and MRI findings in 2 sisters carrying compound heterozygous mutations and exhibiting a peculiar form of developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (DEE). Neuropathologic features are also described in one of the sisters.

Methods: Clinical course description, video-EEG polygraphic recordings, brain MRI, skin and muscle biopsies, whole-exome sequencing (WES), and brain neuropathology.

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Article Synopsis
  • * About 25% of affected individuals met the criteria for autism, and the prevalence of epilepsy varied by sex, being more common in females, with many cases responding well to treatment.
  • * Individuals with missense variants in KMT2E showed the most severe developmental issues, including treatment-resistant epilepsy and microcephaly, highlighting the need for further research to understand the effects of these variants.
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Purpose: We aimed to gain insight into frequencies of genetic variants in genes implicated in neurodevelopmental disorder with epilepsy (NDD+E) by investigating large cohorts of patients in a diagnostic setting.

Methods: We analyzed variants in NDD+E using epilepsy gene panel sequencing performed between 2013 and 2017 by two large diagnostic companies. We compared variant frequencies in 6994 panels with another 8588 recently published panels as well as exome-wide de novo variants in 1942 individuals with NDD+E and 10,937 controls.

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Objective: To describe better the motor phenotype, molecular genetic features, and clinical course of -related disease.

Methods: We reviewed clinical information, video recordings, and neuroimaging of a newly identified cohort of 7 patients with de novo missense and splice site mutations, detected by next-generation sequencing techniques.

Results: Patients first presented in early childhood (median age of presentation 10 months, range 0-48 months), with a wide range of clinical symptoms ranging from severe motor and cognitive impairment with marked choreoathetosis, self-injurious behavior, and epileptic encephalopathy to a milder phenotype, featuring moderate developmental delay associated with complex stereotypies, mainly facial dyskinesia and mild epilepsy.

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Targeted resequencing gene panels are used in the diagnostic setting to identify gene defects in epilepsy. We performed targeted resequencing using a 30-genes panel and a 95-genes panel in 349 patients with drug-resistant epilepsies beginning in the first years of life. We identified 71 pathogenic variants, 42 of which novel, in 30 genes, corresponding to 20.

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Background: Loss-of-function mutations of the FLNA gene cause a neuronal migration disorder defined as X-linked periventricular nodular heterotopia (PNH); gain-of-function mutations are associated with a group of X-linked skeletal dysplasias designed as otopalatodigital (OPD) spectrum. We describe a family in which a woman and her three daughters exhibited a complex phenotype combining PNH, epilepsy and Melnick-Needles syndrome (MNS), a skeletal disorder assigned to the OPD spectrum. All four individuals harboured a novel non-conservative missense mutation in FLNA exon 3.

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