Author/Editor     Khan, Mubeen; Cornelis, Stéphanie S.; Del Pozo-Valero, Marta; Whelan, Laura; Runhar, Esmee H.; Mishra, Ketan; Bults, Femke; AlSwaiti, Yahya; AlTalbishi, Alaa; Glavač, Damjan
Title     Resolving the dark matter of ABCA4 for 1054 Stargardt disease probands through integrated genomics and transcriptomics
Type     članek
Publication year     2020
ISSN     1098-3600 - Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics
Language     eng
Abstract     Purpose: Missing heritability in human diseases represents a major challenge, and this is particularly true for ABCA4-associated Stargardt disease (STGD1). We aimed to elucidate the genomic and transcriptomic variation in 1054 unsolved STGD and STGD-like probands. Methods: Sequencing of the complete 128-kb ABCA4 gene was performed using single-molecule molecular inversion probes (smMIPs), based on a semiautomated and cost-effective method. Structural variants (SVs) were identified using relative read coverage analyses and putative splice defects were studied using in vitro assays. Results: In 448 biallelic probands 14 known and 13 novel deep-intronic variants were found, resulting in pseudoexon (PE) insertions or exon elongations in 105 alleles. Intriguingly, intron 13 variants c.1938-621G>A and c.1938-514G>A resulted in dual PE insertions consisting of the same upstream, but different downstream PEs. The intron 44 variant c.6148-84A>T resulted in two PE insertions and flanking exon deletions. Eleven distinct large deletions were found, two of which contained small inverted segments. Uniparental isodisomy of chromosome 1 was identified in one proband. Conclusion: Deep sequencing of ABCA4 and midigene-based splice assays allowed the identification of SVs and causal deep-intronic variants in 25% of biallelic STGD1 cases, which represents a model study that can be applied to other inherited diseases.
Keywords     Stargardt disease
deep-intronic variants
structural variants
Stargardtova bolezen
globoko-intronske variante
strukturne variante