Publications by authors named "Monica Gagliardi"

Background: Febrile seizures (FSs) are the most common form of epilepsy in children aged between six months and five years. The exact cause is unknown, but several studies have demonstrated the importance of genetic predisposition, with increasing involvement of receptors and ion channels. The present study aims to identify novel pathogenic variants in Italian patients with FSs.

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  • The study explores how copy number variations (CNVs) affect the development of Parkinson's disease (PD), aiming to identify new genetic mechanisms linked to sporadic cases of the disease.
  • Utilizing data from over 11,000 PD patients and nearly 9,000 controls, the researchers discovered 14 significant CNV loci associated with PD, including various gene duplications and deletions.
  • The research highlights a higher prevalence of CNVs in specific PD-related genes among patients and suggests that certain CNVs, especially those involving the gene, may lead to earlier onset of the disease in early-onset PD cases.
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  • The study investigates the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and Parkinson's disease (PD) using a method called Mendelian randomization to determine if higher genetically predicted BMI is linked to a lower incidence of PD.
  • Researchers analyzed genetic data from large groups of individuals, including over 800,000 for BMI and nearly 29,000 for PD, focusing on factors like age, disease duration, and gender to examine the associations.
  • Results indicated an inverse relationship between genetically predicted BMI and PD, particularly among younger participants and women, suggesting that lower BMI may be associated with a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease.
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Background And Purpose: Glucose transporter-1 (GLUT1) deficiency syndrome (GLUT1-DS) is a metabolic disorder due to reduced expression of GLUT1, a glucose transporter of the central nervous system. GLUT1-DS is caused by heterozygous SLC2A1 variants that mostly arise de novo. Here, we report a large family with heterogeneous phenotypes related to a novel SLC2A1 variant.

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Doublecortin, encoded by the gene, plays a crucial role in the neuronal migration process during brain development. Pathogenic variants of the gene are the major causes of the "lissencephaly (LIS) spectrum", which comprehends a milder phenotype like Subcortical Band Heterotopia (SBH) in heterozygous female subjects. We performed targeted sequencing in three unrelated female cases with SBH.

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  • * The study focused on an Italian family with four affected members (the mother and three siblings) who exhibited myotonia, along with two of them having JME; genetic testing revealed a shared variant in the SCN4A gene among those affected.
  • * Findings suggest that the myotonia and epilepsy in this family may stem from the same genetic mutation in the SCN4A gene, indicating that
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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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Recently, a novel pathogenic variant in Annexin A1 protein (c.4G > A, p.Ala2Thr) has been identified in an Iranian consanguineous family with autosomal recessive parkinsonism.

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  • Epidemiological studies have shown mixed results regarding the link between Parkinson's disease (PD) and various cancers, primarily due to methodological challenges.
  • This research aimed to explore the genetic correlation between PD and different cancers using data from large genome-wide association studies (GWASs) involving thousands of participants, particularly those of European ancestry.
  • Findings revealed a positive genetic correlation between PD and melanoma as well as prostate cancer, while showing inverse associations between PD and ovarian cancer, indicating complex genetic interactions between these diseases.
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  • - The study aimed to create a global cohort of individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) linked to specific genetic variants, aiming to improve the understanding and treatment of monogenic PD.
  • - Researchers collected data from 3,888 participants across 92 centers in 42 countries, including 3,185 diagnosed with PD and 703 unaffected individuals, which highlighted a total of 269 distinct pathogenic variants.
  • - This initiative not only established the largest international genetic PD cohort but also provided quality-controlled clinical and genetic data to foster further research collaboration.
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Background: Hereditary cranial hyperostosis is a rare disease never described in Italy, so the neurological manifestations in patients and carriers of the disease have been little studied.

Methods: We describe the neurological and neuroimaging features of patients and carriers of the gene from a large Italian family with sclerosteosis.

Results: In this family, genetic testing detected the homozygous p.

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  • - This study investigates the genetic factors influencing the age at onset (AAO) of Parkinson's disease (PD), aiming to address the inconsistencies in previous research and validate findings through a meta-analysis of diverse populations.
  • - The meta-analysis combined data from the COURAGE-PD Consortium, which included over 8,500 patients primarily of European origin, and the International Parkinson Disease Genomics Consortium, reaching a total of nearly 26,000 participants.
  • - The research confirmed a known genetic variant associated with PD AAO and discovered two genome-wide significant signals on chromosome 4, contributing new insights into the genetic basis of the disease's onset.
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Introduction: Progranulin (PGRN) is a secreted glycoprotein encoded in humans by the GRN gene, located on chromosome 17q21. Several nonsense and missense pathogenetic GRN mutations have been described.

Objective: We herein describe two sisters carrying a rare GRN mutation with extremely different clinical features and family history of dementia and behavioral disorders, with a novel presentation with stridor and dysphonia.

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  • Two contrasting studies previously examined the link between the HLA-DRB1 gene and smoking concerning Parkinson's disease (PD), leading to varying conclusions.
  • This research aimed to replicate those findings by analyzing genetic data from over 12,000 PD cases and nearly 9,500 controls, focusing on specific genetic variants related to smoking.
  • The results indicated that a specific variant in the HLA-DRB1 gene (valine at position 11) was significantly associated with PD, revealing an inverse relationship between smoking initiation and PD only in individuals lacking this variant, which invites further investigation into the underlying mechanisms.
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Exanucleotide expansions in C9orf72 gene have been described as potential risk factor in some patients with Multiple system atrophy (MSA) and other forms of atypical parkinsonism. The goal of our study was to extend the knowledge on the involvement of C9orf72 in MSA studying a cohort of 100 patients from Italy. We identified 2 heterozygous patients in the pathological range (> 30 repeats) and 4 heterozygous patients for expansions in the premutation range (20 -30 repeats).

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  • Previous studies suggested that dairy intake may increase the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD), especially in men, but the nature of this relationship was unclear.
  • This research used genetic data to investigate the link between dairy consumption and PD through a method called Mendelian randomization, involving nearly 10,000 patients and 8,000 controls.
  • The results indicated that genetically predicted higher dairy intake is associated with an increased risk of PD, particularly in men, providing evidence for a possible causal relationship.
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  • The study investigates how lifestyle factors like smoking, alcohol, and coffee consumption relate to Parkinson's disease (PD), using a genetic approach to avoid potential biases in causation.* -
  • Findings indicate that smoking is significantly associated with a lower risk of developing PD, while no such associations were found for alcohol or coffee consumption, though there is a suggestion that genetic vulnerability to PD might increase alcohol drinking.* -
  • The research concludes that the protective effect of smoking on PD is likely genuine and not influenced by reverse causation or other biases; however, the data on alcohol and coffee remains inconclusive due to limited power.*
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Objective: Structural abnormalities in thalami and basal ganglia, in particular the globus pallidus (GP), are a neuroimaging hallmark of hereditary aceruloplasminemia (HA), yet few functional imaging data exit in HA carriers. This study investigated the iron-related structural and functional abnormalities in an Italian HA family.

Methods: Multimodal imaging was used including structural 3 T MRI, functional imaging (SPECT imaging with I-ioflupane (DAT-SPECT), cardiac I metaiodobenzylguanidine (I-MIBG) scintigraphy, and F-fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG)-PET imaging).

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Recently, the LRP10 gene has been associated with Parkinson's disease (PD), Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the presence of mutations of the LRP10 gene in patients with PD or DLB from Southern Italy. Sequencing analysis revealed only 2 missense and 3 synonymous variants in patients and control subjects and a rare variant p.

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GLUT1 Deficiency Syndrome (GLUT1-DS) is a rare and potentially treatable neurometabolic condition, caused by a reduced glucose transport into the brain and clinically characterized by an epileptic encephalopathy with movement disorders. A wide inter-intrafamilial phenotypic variability has been reported. Very-long-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (VLCAD) deficiency is an inherited metabolic disorder of mitochondrial long-chain fatty acid oxidation (FAO) with also a variable age of onset and clinical presentation including cardiomyopathy, hypoketotic hypoglycemia, and liver disease.

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DCTN1 encodes the largest subunit of dynactin complex essential in the retrograde axonal transport and cytoplasmic transport of vesicles; mutations in DCTN1 have been reported predominantly in individuals with Perry syndrome and, recently, in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy. Our genetic screening of DCTN1 in 79 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy, 100 patients with multiple system atrophy, and 28 patients with dementia with Lewy bodies from Italy revealed only synonymous and intronic variants, suggesting that DCTN1 mutations do not have a key role in the development of atypical parkinsonism in the Italian population.

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COQ2 encodes para-hydroxybenzoate-polyprenyl transferase and, recently, mutations in this gene have been associated with the increase of the risk of multiple system atrophy (MSA) in Japanese cases. Subsequently, studies in Asian patients confirmed the role of COQ2 in the development of MSA, while other analysis failed to replicate these results in Caucasian population. We performed genetics screening of COQ2 in 100 MSA Italian patients.

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