Dataset Information

The Iceberg under Water: Unexplored Complexity of Chromoanagenesis in Congenital Disorders.

ABSTRACT: Structural variation, composed of balanced and unbalanced genomic rearrangements, is an important contributor to human genetic diversity with prominent roles in somatic and congenital disease. At the nucleotide level, structural variants (SVs) have been shown to frequently harbor additional breakpoints and copy-number imbalances, a complexity predicted to emerge wholly as a single-cell division event. Chromothripsis, chromoplexy, and chromoanasynthesis, collectively referred to as chromoanagenesis, are three major mechanisms that explain the occurrence of complex germline and somatic SVs. While chromothripsis and chromoplexy have been shown to be key signatures of cancer, chromoanagenesis has been detected in numerous cases of developmental disease and phenotypically normal individuals. Such observations advocate for a deeper study of the polymorphic and pathogenic properties of complex germline SVs, many of which go undetected by traditional clinical molecular and cytogenetic methods. This review focuses on congenital chromoanagenesis, mechanisms leading to occurrence of these complex rearrangements, and their impact on chromosome organization and genome function. We highlight future applications of routine screening of complex and balanced SVs in the clinic, as these represent a potential and often neglected genetic disease source, a true "iceberg under water."

SUBMITTER: Zepeda-Mendoza CJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6451730 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Iceberg under Water: Unexplored Complexity of Chromoanagenesis in Congenital Disorders.

Zepeda-Mendoza Cinthya J CJ Morton Cynthia C CC

American journal of human genetics 20190401 4

Structural variation, composed of balanced and unbalanced genomic rearrangements, is an important contributor to human genetic diversity with prominent roles in somatic and congenital disease. At the nucleotide level, structural variants (SVs) have been shown to frequently harbor additional breakpoints and copy-number imbalances, a complexity predicted to emerge wholly as a single-cell division event. Chromothripsis, chromoplexy, and chromoanasynthesis, collectively referred to as chromoanagenes ...[more]

PMID: 30951674

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Project description:The application of genome sequencing in patients with intellectual disability and congenital anomalies (ID/CA) typically identifies causative mutations only in a minority of cases. We hypothesized that some cases of ID/CA are caused by epigenetic aberrations that dysregulate normal genome function, and that these would be missed by conventional sequencing approaches. We performed Illumina 450k DNA methylation profiling in ~500 individuals with ID/CA, who were negative for causative mutations by microarray, exome- and/or whole genome sequencing. We screened patient methylation profiles for epimutations absent in ~1,500 controls, and validated these by bisulfite sequencing, revealing that epimutations represent large methylation changes specifically on one allele. Parental studies show that approximately half represent de novo events, a rate significantly higher than that seen in controls. We identified seven recurrent events, two of which (FMR1, MEG3) have known disease associations, validating our method for detecting pathogenic epimutations. From large-scale sequencing, population and expression studies we conclude that epimutations are: (i) Frequently associated with extreme outlier and mono-allelic gene expression, with an impact comparable to loss-of-function mutations; (ii) Generally conserved across multiple tissues within an individual, validating the use of blood DNA to study ID/CA; (iii) Can occur secondary to cis-linked regulatory mutations, providing a rationale for interpreting non-coding genetic variants; (iv) Occur sporadically with a remarkably high de novo rate, and (v) Exhibit non-Mendelian inheritance, likely being reset between generations by epigenetic reprogramming during embryogenesis. We conclude that epimutations underlie 5-10% of patients with ID/CA who are refractory to conventional mutation screening, and propose that epigenome profiling represents a promising method for the study of human disease that complements sequence-based approaches.

Dataset Information

The Iceberg under Water: Unexplored Complexity of Chromoanagenesis in Congenital Disorders.

Publications

The Iceberg under Water: Unexplored Complexity of Chromoanagenesis in Congenital Disorders.

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