Background: non-syndromic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is found to correlate with a genetic cause in 30-40 % of cases. The identification of a causative gene variant can guide treatment options and cascade testing of at-risk family members. Cardiomyopathy multigene panels are routinely used to identify the genetic cause, but often detect variants of uncertain significance (VUS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF: Baraitser-Winter Syndrome (BRWS) is a rare autosomal dominant condition associated with hearing loss (HL). In the literature, two types of this condition are reported, Baraitser-Winter type 1 (BRWS1) and type 2 (BRWS2) produced by specific pathogenetic variants of two different genes, ACTB for BRWS1 and ACTG1 for BRWS2. In addition to syndromic BRWS2, some pathogenic variants in ACTG1 are associated also to another pathologic entity, the "Autosomal dominant non-syndromic hearing loss 20/26".
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Pathogenic variants of PCDH19, located on the X-chromosome (Xq22.1), cause a rare epileptic encephalopathy with speech and development delay, seizures, behavioral and psychiatric problems. The specific underlying pathogenic mechanism is known as "cellular interference" that results in affected heterozygous females, normal hemizygous males and affected mosaic males but its functioning is not yet clear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSALL1 heterozygous pathogenic variants cause Townes-Brocks syndrome (TBS), a condition with variable clinical presentation. The main features are a stenotic or imperforate anus, dysplastic ears, and thumb malformations, and other common concerns are hearing impairments, foot malformations, and renal and heart defects. Most of the pathogenic variants are nonsense and frameshift, likely escaping nonsense-mediated mRNA decay and causing disease via a dominant-negative mechanism.
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