Publications by authors named "Bert B A De Vries"

DDX3X-related neurodevelopmental disorder is one of the most common monogenic causes of intellectual disability in females, with currently >1000 females diagnosed worldwide. In contrast, reports on affected males with DDX3X variants are scarce. The limited knowledge on this X-linked disorder in males hinders the interpretation of hemizygous DDX3X variants in clinical practice.

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Heterozygous mutations in are associated with an early-onset, progressive and often complex dystonia (DYT28). Key characteristics of typical disease include focal motor features at disease presentation, evolving through a caudocranial pattern into generalized dystonia, with prominent oromandibular, laryngeal and cervical involvement. Although -related disease is emerging as one of the most common causes of early-onset genetic dystonia, much remains to be understood about the full spectrum of the disease.

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Germline mutations of YY1 cause Gabriele-de Vries syndrome (GADEVS), a neurodevelopmental disorder featuring intellectual disability and a wide range of systemic manifestations. To dissect the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying GADEVS, we combined large-scale imaging, single-cell multiomics and gene regulatory network reconstruction in 2D and 3D patient-derived physiopathologically relevant cell lineages. YY1 haploinsufficiency causes a pervasive alteration of cell type specific transcriptional networks, disrupting corticogenesis at the level of neural progenitors and terminally differentiated neurons, including cytoarchitectural defects reminiscent of GADEVS clinical features.

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RICTOR is a key component of the mTORC2 signaling complex which is involved in the regulation of cell growth, proliferation and survival. RICTOR is highly expressed in neurons and is necessary for brain development. Here, we report eight unrelated patients presenting with intellectual disability and/or development delay and carrying variants in the RICTOR gene.

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The heterotrimeric protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) complex catalyzes about half of Ser/Thr dephosphorylations in eukaryotic cells. A CAG repeat expansion in the neuron-specific protein PP2A regulatory subunit PPP2R2B gene causes spinocerebellar ataxia type 12 (SCA12). We established five monoallelic missense variants in PPP2R2B (four confirmed as de novo) as a cause of intellectual disability with developmental delay (R149P, T246K, N310K, E37K, I427T).

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Neurodevelopmental disorder with or without autism or seizures (NEDAUS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by global developmental delay, speech delay, seizures, autistic features, and/or behavior abnormalities. It is caused by CUL3 (Cullin-3 ubiquitin ligase) haploinsufficiency. We collected clinical and molecular data from 26 individuals carrying pathogenic variants and variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in the CUL3 gene, including 20 previously unreported cases.

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An increasing number of individuals with intellectual developmental disorder (IDD) and heterozygous variants in BCL11A are identified, yet our knowledge of manifestations and mutational spectrum is lacking. To address this, we performed detailed analysis of 42 individuals with BCL11A-related IDD (BCL11A-IDD, a.k.

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Article Synopsis
  • ARID1A and ARID1B duplications are linked to Coffin-Siris syndrome, but ARID1B duplications have not been previously associated with a specific clinical phenotype until now.
  • A study analyzed 16 cases of ARID1A and 13 cases of ARID1B duplications, revealing that ARID1A duplications resulted in more severe symptoms, including intellectual disabilities and growth delays, while both groups displayed similar features.
  • The research identified unique DNA methylation patterns in ARID1A duplication patients, which differ from those with loss-of-function variants, suggesting the presence of a distinct clinical phenotype for both ARID1A and ARID1B duplications, indicating a new type of
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The Koolen-de Vries Syndrome Foundation was founded in 2013 with the mission to educate, increase awareness, promote research and develop treatments for individuals living with Koolen-de Vries Syndrome (KdVS) and their families. With this aim, the foundation has focused on: developing scientific resources through patient cell and animal models, providing seed funding to basic and clinical researchers, establishing a natural history study of KdVS and increasing patient engagement. Projects have been prioritized across these areas of focus with an emphasis on expanding international research on KdVS, supporting translational research, establishing an international natural history study and conducting studies to assess patient priorities.

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  • KMT2C and KMT2D are important enzymes that modify genes, with KMT2C haploinsufficiency recently linked to Kleefstra syndrome 2, a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) with unknown clinical details.
  • A study involving 98 individuals found that most pathogenic variants in KMT2C span nearly all its exons, making variant interpretation difficult; the study also established a KMT2C DNA methylation signature for better classification of the disorder.
  • Key features of KMT2C-related NDD include developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, and distinct facial characteristics, setting it apart from similar conditions like Kleefstra and Kabuki syndromes, indicating the need for its renaming and
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The shift to a genotype-first approach in genetic diagnostics has revolutionized our understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders, expanding both their molecular and phenotypic spectra. Kleefstra syndrome (KLEFS1) is caused by EHMT1 haploinsufficiency and exhibits broad clinical manifestations. EHMT1 encodes euchromatic histone methyltransferase-1-a pivotal component of the epigenetic machinery.

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  • The DNA damage response is crucial for keeping our genes intact, and its disruption is often linked to cancer development, with PPM1D acting as a key negative regulator.
  • Researchers used CRISPR/Cas9 to find vulnerabilities in cancer cells with mutations in PPM1D, identifying superoxide dismutase-1 (SOD1) as a promising target.
  • The study showed that PPM1D-mutant cells have high levels of reactive oxygen species and struggle with oxidative stress, suggesting that targeting SOD1 could be a new treatment approach for these types of cancers.
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Chung-Jansen syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by intellectual disability, behavioral problems, obesity and dysmorphic features. It is caused by pathogenic variants in the PHIP gene that encodes for the Pleckstrin homology domain-interacting protein, which is part of an epigenetic modifier protein complex. Therefore, we hypothesized that PHIP haploinsufficiency may impact genome-wide DNA methylation (DNAm).

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Article Synopsis
  • The study highlights the lack of understanding regarding comorbidities in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), which are crucial for accurate diagnosis and prognosis.
  • PhenomAD-NDD is a newly developed database that compiles comorbid phenotypic data from over 51,000 individuals with NDD, utilizing a standardized classification known as Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO).
  • The findings reveal that congenital anomalies are significantly more common in the NDD population compared to the general population, and highlight that many important phenotypes related to genetic NDDs are not currently documented in existing clinical resources like OMIM.
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Intellectual disability (ID) is a diverse neurodevelopmental condition and almost half of the cases have a genetic etiology. SGIP1 acts as an endocytic protein that influences the signaling of receptors in neuronal systems related to energy homeostasis through its interaction with endophilins. This study focuses on the generation and characterization of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) from two unrelated patients due to a frameshift variant (c.

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Mutations in ADNP result in Helsmoortel-Van der Aa syndrome. Here, we describe the first de novo intronic deletion, affecting the splice-acceptor site of the first coding ADNP exon in a five-year-old girl with developmental delay and autism. Whereas exome sequencing failed to detect the non-coding deletion, genome-wide CpG methylation analysis revealed an episignature suggestive of a Helsmoortel-Van der Aa syndrome diagnosis.

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Article Synopsis
  • The DIP2 gene, first found in fruit flies, is crucial for neuron branching and regeneration, with vertebrate versions (DIP2A, DIP2B, and DIP2C) being highly conserved in the central nervous system.
  • Research showed that mutations in DIP2C are linked to developmental delays in expressive language and speech articulation in 23 affected individuals.
  • Alongside developmental issues, some individuals with DIP2C variants also presented with various cardiac defects and minor facial anomalies, highlighting a connection between the gene's loss-of-function and neurocognitive and physical phenotypes.
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Germline mutations of YY1 cause Gabriele-de Vries syndrome (GADEVS), a neurodevelopmental disorder featuring intellectual disability and a wide range of systemic manifestations. To dissect the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying GADEVS, we combined large-scale imaging, single-cell multiomics and gene regulatory network reconstruction in 2D and 3D patient-derived physiopathologically relevant cell lineages. YY1 haploinsufficiency causes a pervasive alteration of cell type specific transcriptional networks, disrupting corticogenesis at the level of neural progenitors and terminally differentiated neurons, including cytoarchitectural defects reminiscent of GADEVS clinical features.

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Pathogenic variants in KANSL1 and 17q21.31 microdeletions are causative of Koolen-de Vries syndrome (KdVS), a neurodevelopmental syndrome with characteristic facial dysmorphia. Our previous work has shown that syndromic conditions caused by pathogenic variants in epigenetic regulatory genes have identifiable patterns of DNA methylation (DNAm) change: DNAm signatures or episignatures.

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Objectives: Koolen-de Vries Syndrome (KdVS) is a rare multisystem neurodevelopmental disorder. Ocular manifestations, including strabismus, ptosis, and hyperopia, have been reported in KdVS patients, but detailed clinical data are limited. This study aims to investigate the already known ocular malformations and their frequency while uncovering novel ocular associations.

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The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) is a widely used resource that comprehensively organizes and defines the phenotypic features of human disease, enabling computational inference and supporting genomic and phenotypic analyses through semantic similarity and machine learning algorithms. The HPO has widespread applications in clinical diagnostics and translational research, including genomic diagnostics, gene-disease discovery, and cohort analytics. In recent years, groups around the world have developed translations of the HPO from English to other languages, and the HPO browser has been internationalized, allowing users to view HPO term labels and in many cases synonyms and definitions in ten languages in addition to English.

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Article Synopsis
  • The DNA damage response is crucial for keeping our genetic material stable and its disruption is often linked to cancer development.
  • PPM1D acts as a key negative regulator of this response, and mutations in this gene have been found in various cancers, making it a potential target for new treatments.
  • Using CRISPR/Cas9 screening, researchers identified SOD1 as a promising target for cells with PPM1D mutations, showing that these cells have higher levels of reactive oxygen species and struggle with oxidative stress, indicating a new cancer therapy approach.
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Article Synopsis
  • - PhenoScore is an open-source AI framework that combines facial recognition technology and Human Phenotype Ontology data to analyze and quantify phenotypic similarities in individuals.
  • - It successfully identifies distinct phenotypes for most of the 40 syndromes studied and proves to be more effective than previous methods in genotype-phenotype correlation investigations.
  • - PhenoScore also helps clarify roles of specific genetic variants by confirming known phenotypic subgroups in certain genes and providing clinical evidence for different ADNP-related phenotypes.
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