Publications by authors named "Hana Lango-Allen"

Article Synopsis
  • Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder linked to the CFTR gene, which can show similarities with primary immunodeficiency (PID) symptoms.
  • The study aimed to determine if carrying a CFTR gene mutation is related to more severe lung damage in PID patients.
  • Findings revealed that certain CFTR mutations were more common in PID patients with lung issues, suggesting that genetic testing could enhance treatment strategies in these cases.*
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  • The blood-brain barrier is essential for protecting the central nervous system (CNS) and maintaining its balance, with Claudin-5 (CLDN5) being a key factor in its integrity.
  • Researchers discovered new mutations in the CLDN5 gene in 15 unrelated patients, who exhibited symptoms like developmental delays, seizures, and specific brain abnormalities.
  • By studying these variants in zebrafish, they found that these mutations likely disrupt the normal function of CLDN5, leading to a new neurodevelopmental disorder that affects both the blood-brain barrier and neuronal health.
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Tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated factor 3 (TRAF3) is a central regulator of immunity. TRAF3 is often somatically mutated in B cell malignancies, but its role in human immunity is not defined. Here, in five unrelated families, we describe an immune dysregulation syndrome of recurrent bacterial infections, autoimmunity, systemic inflammation, B cell lymphoproliferation, and hypergammaglobulinemia.

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Purpose: The study aimed to systematically ascertain male sex chromosome abnormalities, 47,XXY (Klinefelter syndrome [KS]) and 47,XYY, and characterize their risks of adverse health outcomes.

Methods: We analyzed genotyping array or exome sequence data in 207,067 men of European ancestry aged 40 to 70 years from the UK Biobank and related these to extensive routine health record data.

Results: Only 49 of 213 (23%) of men whom we identified with KS and only 1 of 143 (0.

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Mosaic loss of chromosome Y (LOY) in leukocytes is the most common form of clonal mosaicism, caused by dysregulation in cell-cycle and DNA damage response pathways. Previous genetic studies have focussed on identifying common variants associated with LOY, which we now extend to rarer, protein-coding variation using exome sequences from 82,277 male UK Biobank participants. We find that loss of function of two genes-CHEK2 and GIGYF1-reach exome-wide significance.

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The formation of mammalian dendritic cells (DCs) is controlled by multiple hematopoietic transcription factors, including IRF8. Loss of IRF8 exerts a differential effect on DC subsets, including plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) and the classical DC lineages cDC1 and cDC2. In humans, cDC2-related subsets have been described including AXLSIGLEC6 pre-DC, DC2 and DC3.

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Article Synopsis
  • Many patients with rare diseases lack proper molecular diagnoses, and over half of these disorders still have unknown genetic causes.
  • A study involving whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in a national health system analyzed data from over 13,000 participants, successfully providing genetic diagnoses for a subset of those with rare diseases.
  • The research identified 95 gene-disease associations, including 11 newly discovered since 2015, and highlighted four novel non-coding variants that disrupt important gene functions, showcasing the potential of WGS in enhancing genetic diagnosis and disease understanding.
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  • Primary immunodeficiency (PID) leads to serious health issues like recurrent infections, autoimmune diseases, and cancers, presenting challenges for diagnosis and treatment, especially when patients are adults with no known family history.
  • A study analyzing whole-genome sequencing in 1,318 PID patients found that 10.3% had identified mutations in known genes, along with new candidate genes and deletions in regulatory regions that contribute to PID.
  • The research also explored the genetic interplay of high-penetrance variants with common variants, shedding light on how these factors affect the diverse symptoms and severity seen in PID, highlighting the potential of whole-genome sequencing in improving diagnosis and understanding of immune disorders.
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A 29-year old male with recurrent respiratory and skin infections, anaemia and neutropaenia during childhood required immunoglobulin replacement for antibody deficiency from age 16. He remained relatively well until age 28 when he presented with a two-week history of fatigue, sore throat, fever and productive cough. He was found to have EBV viraemia and splenomegaly and a diagnosis of EBV-driven lymphoproliferative disease was made following bone marrow trephine.

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  • An increasing number of NFKB1 variants have been linked to diverse immune system issues in patients, prompting a comprehensive study of these mutations.
  • The study evaluated 231 individuals with various NFKB1 mutations, identifying 56 as pathogenic, resulting in primary immunodeficiency and other immune-related problems like autoimmunity and malignancy.
  • The findings highlight the need for awareness among medical professionals about this condition's complexity, recommending treatments like immunoglobulin replacement, immunosuppressants, and considering stem cell transplantation.
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The UK Biobank is an unprecedented resource for human disease research. In March 2019, 49,997 exomes were made publicly available to investigators. Here we note that thousands of variant calls are unexpectedly absent from this dataset, with 641 genes showing zero variation.

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While widespread genome sequencing ushers in a new era of preventive medicine, the tools for predictive genomics are still lacking. Time and resource limitations mean that human diseases remain uncharacterized because of an inability to predict clinically relevant genetic variants. A strategy of targeting highly conserved protein regions is used commonly in functional studies.

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IL-6 excess is central to the pathogenesis of multiple inflammatory conditions and is targeted in clinical practice by immunotherapy that blocks the IL-6 receptor encoded by We describe two patients with homozygous mutations in who presented with recurrent infections, abnormal acute-phase responses, elevated IgE, eczema, and eosinophilia. This study identifies a novel primary immunodeficiency, clarifying the contribution of IL-6 to the phenotype of patients with mutations in , and genes encoding different components of the IL-6 signaling pathway, and alerts us to the potential toxicity of drugs targeting the IL-6R.

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Genetic studies are identifying an increasing number of monogenic causes of Common Variable Immunodeficiency (CVID). Pathogenic variants in the C-terminus of NFKB2 have been identified in the subset of CVID patients whose immunodeficiency is associated with ectodermal dysplasia and central adrenal insufficiency. We describe 2 unrelated CVID pedigrees with 4 cases of pathogenic stop gain variants (c.

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Objective: To elucidate the genetic cause of a large 5 generation South Indian family with multiple individuals with predominantly an upper limb postural tremor and posturing in keeping with another form of tremor, namely, dystonic tremor.

Methods: Whole-genome single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarray analysis was undertaken to look for copy number variants in the affected individuals.

Results: Whole-genome SNP microarray studies identified a tandem duplicated genomic segment of chromosome 15q24 present in all affected family members.

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Background: The genetic cause of primary immunodeficiency disease (PID) carries prognostic information.

Objective: We conducted a whole-genome sequencing study assessing a large proportion of the NIHR BioResource-Rare Diseases cohort.

Methods: In the predominantly European study population of principally sporadic unrelated PID cases (n = 846), a novel Bayesian method identified nuclear factor κB subunit 1 (NFKB1) as one of the genes most strongly associated with PID, and the association was explained by 16 novel heterozygous truncating, missense, and gene deletion variants.

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Objective: Rare genetic disorders resulting in prenatal or neonatal death are genetically heterogeneous, but testing is often limited by the availability of fetal DNA, leaving couples without a potential prenatal test for future pregnancies. We describe our novel strategy of exome sequencing parental DNA samples to diagnose recessive monogenic disorders in an audit of the first 50 couples referred.

Method: Exome sequencing was carried out in a consecutive series of 50 couples who had 1 or more pregnancies affected with a lethal or prenatal-onset disorder.

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Young-onset autoimmune diabetes associated with additional autoimmunity usually reflects a polygenic predisposition, but rare cases result from monogenic autoimmunity. Diagnosing monogenic autoimmunity is crucial for patients' prognosis and clinical management. We sought to identify novel genetic causes of autoimmunity presenting with neonatal diabetes (NDM) (diagnosis <6 months).

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Hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia (HI) and congenital polycystic kidney disease (PKD) are rare, genetically heterogeneous disorders. The co-occurrence of these disorders (HIPKD) in 17 children from 11 unrelated families suggested an unrecognized genetic disorder. Whole-genome linkage analysis in five informative families identified a single significant locus on chromosome 16p13.

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