Publications by authors named "Lepri F"

Huppke-Brendel syndrome (HBS) is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations, a gene coding for the acetyl-CoA transporter-1 (AT-1). So far it has been described in nine pediatric and one adult patient. Therapeutic trials with copper histidinate failed to achieve any clinical improvement.

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  • Cobalamin C (Cbl-C) defect leads to serious health issues like methylmalonic acidemia and cognitive impairment, but treatment with hydroxocobalamin (OH-Cbl) doses remains uncertain.
  • * A study compared high-dose OH-Cbl treatment in newborn screening (NBS)-diagnosed patients to low-dose treatment in other groups, showing that the high-dose group had significantly better metabolic and neurodevelopmental outcomes.
  • * Results indicated that while high-dose treatment improved overall health markers and cognitive performance, it did not affect the incidence of maculopathy, signaling a need for clearer dosing guidelines in Cbl-C treatment.*
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Purpose: Pathogenic LZTR1 variants cause schwannomatosis and dominant/recessive Noonan syndrome (NS). We aim to establish an association between heterozygous loss-of-function LZTR1 alleles and isolated multiple café-au-lait macules (CaLMs).

Methods: A total of 849 unrelated participants with multiple CaLMs, lacking pathogenic/likely pathogenic NF1 and SPRED1 variants, underwent RASopathy gene panel sequencing.

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Background: Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is considered a rare cause of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis (CRSwNP), which is reported in 6% of children with PCD. The forms of PCD associated with the variants of the GAS8 gene identified so far seem to be linked to recurrent respiratory infections (sinusitis, otitis, and bronchiectasis) without situs inversus.

Case Presentation: We report a case of an 11-year-old girl with recurrent otitis media, productive cough, and chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyposis with homozygosity for a novel nonsense mutation in the GAS8.

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Pathogenic, largely truncating variants in the ETS2 repressor factor (ERF) gene, encoding a transcriptional regulator negatively controlling RAS-MAPK signaling, have been associated with syndromic craniosynostosis involving various cranial sutures and Chitayat syndrome, an ultrarare condition with respiratory distress, skeletal anomalies, and facial dysmorphism. Recently, a single patient with craniosynostosis and a phenotype resembling Noonan syndrome (NS), the most common disorder among the RASopathies, was reported to carry a de novo loss-of-function variant in ERF. Here, we clinically profile 26 individuals from 15 unrelated families carrying different germline heterozygous variants in ERF and showing a phenotype reminiscent of NS.

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Introduction: To evaluate and describe the diagnostic process, medical, nutritional, and surgical approach, and neurological outcome, we report data from a large Italian cohort of patients with congenital hyperinsulinism (CHI).

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 154 CHI patients admitted to Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù from 1985 to 2022.

Results: Hypoglycemia occurred within the first year of life in 85.

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  • - Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by symptoms like intrauterine growth retardation, poor development after birth, a triangular face, and feeding issues, with diagnosis based on clinical features.
  • - Genetic abnormalities are found in about 60% of SRS patients, primarily on chromosomes 7 or 11, while the cause remains unknown for around 40% of cases, termed idiopathic SRS.
  • - A new genetic variant was identified in a child with severe growth issues linked to SRS, highlighting the effectiveness of targeted exome sequencing, and long-term growth hormone treatment was found to improve the child's height.
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Background: Ornithine Transcarbamylase Deficiency (OTCD) is an X-linked urea cycle disorder characterized by acute hyperammonemic episodes. Hemizygous males are usually affected by a severe/fatal neonatal-onset form or, less frequently, by a late-onset form with milder disease course, depending on the residual enzymatic activity. Hyperammonemia can occur any time during life and patients could remain non- or mis-diagnosed due to unspecific symptoms.

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Very Early Onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease (VEO-IBD) is potentially associated with genetic disorders of the intestinal epithelial barrier or inborn errors of immunity (IEI). Dual oxidase 2 (DUOX2), an HO-producing NADPH oxidase expressed at apical enterocyte membranes, plays a crucial role in innate defense response. Biallelic mutations have been described only in two patients with VEO-IBD to date.

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Background: KBG syndrome is caused by haploinsufficiency of and is characterised by macrodontia of upper central incisors, distinctive facial features, short stature, skeletal anomalies, developmental delay, brain malformations and seizures. The central nervous system (CNS) and skeletal features remain poorly defined.

Methods: CNS and/or skeletal imaging were collected from molecularly confirmed individuals with KBG syndrome through an international network.

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  • - Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an inherited genetic disorder that can be challenging to diagnose due to gene inactivation and limitations in existing genetic testing methods, which may miss certain mutations.
  • - The study focuses on a specific familial NF1 case caused by a LINE-1 element insertion in a gene, leading to skipped gene segments, highlighting the complexity of such mutations.
  • - By using advanced techniques like Optical Genome Mapping and whole-genome sequencing (WGS), the researchers successfully identified the mutation and its impact, underscoring the need for specialized methods in cases that remain undiagnosed.
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Zhu-Tokita-Takenouchi-Kim (ZTTK) syndrome, an intellectual disability syndrome first described in 2016, is caused by heterozygous loss-of-function variants in . Haploinsufficiency in may affect multiple genes, including those involved in the development and metabolism of multiple organs. Considering the broad spectrum of functions, it is to be expected that pathogenic variants in this gene can cause a wide spectrum of clinical symptoms.

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Pathogenic variants in are typically associated with a clinical condition called "capillary malformation-arteriovenous malformation" (CM-AVM) syndrome, an autosomal dominant genetic disease characterized by a broad phenotypic variability, even within families. In CM-AVM syndrome, multifocal capillary and arteriovenous malformations are mainly localized in the central nervous system, spine and skin. Although CM-AVM syndrome has been widely described in the literature, only 21 cases with prenatal onset of clinical features have been reported thus far.

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Cutaneous skeletal hypophosphatemia syndrome (CSHS) is caused by somatic mosaic NRAS variants and characterized by melanocytic/sebaceous naevi, eye, and brain malformations, and FGF23-mediated hypophosphatemic rickets. The MEK inhibitor Trametinib, acting on the RAS/MAPK pathway, is a candidate for CSHS therapy. A 4-year-old boy with seborrheic nevus, eye choristoma, multiple hamartomas, brain malformation, pleural lymphangioma and chylothorax developed severe hypophosphatemic rickets unresponsive to phosphate supplementation.

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Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), an autosomal dominant disorder characterized by skin pigmentary lesions and multiple cutaneous neurofibromas, is caused by neurofibromin 1 (NF1) loss of function variants. Currently, a molecular diagnosis is frequently established using a multistep protocol based on cDNA and gDNA sequence analysis and/or Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA) assay on genomic DNA, providing an overall detection rate of about 95-97%. The small proportion of clinically diagnosed patients, which at present do not obtain a molecular confirmation likely are mosaic, as their pathogenic variant may remain undetected due to low sensitivity of low coverage NGS approaches, or they may carry a type of pathogenic variant refractory to currently used technologies.

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In this report, we describe the case of an 11-year-old boy, who came to our attention for myalgia and muscle weakness, associated with inappetence and vomiting. Hypertransaminasemia was also noted, with ultrasound evidence of hepatomegaly. Biochemical investigations revealed acylcarnitine and organic acid profiles resembling those seen in MADD, that is, multiple acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiencies (OMIM #231680) a rare inherited disorder of fatty acids, amino acids, and choline metabolism.

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  • * Newborn bloodspot screening in Abruzzo, Italy, has detected cases of BD, identifying 16 infants with partial BD and a few carriers, supporting the efficacy of the screening program.
  • * The study found a strong correlation between enzyme activity, gestational age, and specimen collection timing, indicating important factors that can influence test outcomes and the program's predictive accuracy.
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A large number of inborn errors of metabolism present with hypoglycemia. Impairment of glucose homeostasis may arise from different biochemical pathways involving insulin secretion, fatty acid oxidation, ketone bodies formation and degradation, glycogen metabolism, fructose and galactose metabolism, branched chain aminoacids and tyrosine metabolism, mitochondrial function and glycosylation proteins mechanisms. Historically, genetic analysis consisted of highly detailed molecular testing of nominated single genes.

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Citrulline is a target analyte measured at expanded newborn screening (NBS) and its elevation represents a biomarker for distal urea cycle disorders and citrin deficiency. Altered ratios of citrulline with other urea cycle-related amino acids are helpful for the differential diagnosis. However, the use of cut-off values in screening programmes has raised the issue about the interpretation of mild elevation of citrulline levels detected at NBS, below the usual range observed in the "classical/severe" forms of distal urea cycle disorders and in citrin deficiency.

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Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are known to occur in 9%-25% of patients with KBG syndrome. In this study we analyzed the prevalence and anatomic types of CHDs in 46 personal patients with KBG syndrome, carrying pathogenetic variants in ANKRD11 or 16q24.3 deletion, and reviewed CHDs in patients with molecular diagnosis of KBG syndrome from the literature.

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This study presents the use of dry bean pods as a solid phase for fluorescein removal from water. The non-pretreated solid phase did not display any sorption properties for the chosen dye. However, interesting sorption properties were observed following a chemical derivative treatment with nitric acid.

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  • The nevus sebaceous syndrome (NSS) is a rare condition characterized by skin lesions, cortical malformations, and drug-resistant epilepsy, with RAS-pathway genetic variants implicated in its pathogenesis.
  • A case study of a 5-year-old boy with a skin lesion and epilepsy revealed significant brain abnormalities, leading to surgery that resulted in seizure freedom and cognitive improvement three years later.
  • Genetic testing identified a specific KRAS mutation in the boy's brain and skin, marking the first documented link between this mutation, cortical malformations, and epilepsy, suggesting a potential genetic cause for hippocampal sclerosis.
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Introduction: The PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway is important for the regulation of multiple biological processes, including cellular growth and glucose metabolism. Defects of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway are not usually considered among the genetic causes of recurrent hypoglycemia in childhood. However, accumulating evidence links hypoglycemia with defects of this pathway.

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