EBioMedicine (Jan 2024)

Prioritizing de novo potential non-canonical splicing variants in neurodevelopmental disordersResearch in context

  • Kuokuo Li,
  • Jifang Xiao,
  • Zhengbao Ling,
  • Tengfei Luo,
  • Jingyu Xiong,
  • Qian Chen,
  • Lijie Dong,
  • Yijing Wang,
  • Xiaomeng Wang,
  • Zhaowei Jiang,
  • Lu Xia,
  • Zhen Yu,
  • Rong Hua,
  • Rui Guo,
  • Dongdong Tang,
  • Mingrong Lv,
  • Aojie Lian,
  • Bin Li,
  • GuiHu Zhao,
  • Xiaojin He,
  • Kun Xia,
  • Yunxia Cao,
  • Jinchen Li

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 99
p. 104928

Abstract

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Summary: Background: Genomic variants outside of the canonical splicing site (±2) may generate abnormal mRNA splicing, which are defined as non-canonical splicing variants (NCSVs). However, the clinical interpretation of NCSVs in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) is largely unknown. Methods: We investigated the contribution of NCSVs to NDDs from 345,787 de novo variants (DNVs) in 47,574 patients with NDDs. We performed functional enrichment and protein–protein interaction analysis to assess the association between genes carrying prioritised NCSVs and NDDs. Minigene was used to validate the impact of NCSVs on mRNA splicing. Findings: We observed significantly more NCSVs (p = 0.02, odds ratio [OR] = 2.05) among patients with NDD than in controls. Both canonical splicing variants (CSVs) and NCSVs contributed to an equal proportion of patients with NDD (0.76% vs. 0.82%). The candidate genes carrying NCSVs were associated with glutamatergic synapse and chromatin remodelling. Minigene successfully validated 59 of 79 (74.68%) NCSVs that led to abnormal splicing in 40 candidate genes, and 9 of the genes (ARID1B, KAT6B, TCF4, SMARCA2, SHANK3, PDHA1, WDR45, SCN2A, SYNGAP1) harboured recurrent NCSVs with the same variant present in more than two unrelated patients with NDD. Moreover, 36 of 59 (61.02%) NCSVs are novel clinically relevant variants, including 34 unreported and 2 clinically conflicting interpretations or of uncertain significance NCSVs in the ClinVar database. Interpretation: This study highlights the common pathology and clinical importance of NCSVs in unsolved patients with NDD. Funding: The present study was funded by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, the Hunan Youth Science and Technology Innovation Talent Project, the Provincial Natural Science Foundation of Hunan, The Scientific Research Program of FuRong laboratory, and the Natural Science Project of the University of Anhui Province

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