Publications by authors named "Francoise Darcel"

Purpose: Biallelic loss-of-function variants in ST3GAL5 cause GM3 synthase deficiency (GM3SD) responsible for Amish infantile epilepsy syndrome. All Amish patients carry the homozygous p.(Arg288Ter) variant arising from a founder effect.

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Aims: LMNA-linked familial partial lipodystrophy type 2 (FPLD2) leads to insulin resistance-associated metabolic complications and cardiovascular diseases. We aimed to characterise the disease phenotype in a cohort of patients carrying an LMNA founder variant.

Methods: We collected clinical and biological data from patients carrying the monoallelic or biallelic LMNA p.

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Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) is a rare ciliopathy with variable retinal dystrophy, polydactyly, renal abnormalities, obesity, cognitive impairment, and hypogonadism. Biallelic pathogenic variants have been identified in 24 genes, leading to BBS in an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern. In this study, we investigated a cohort of 16 families (20 individuals) presenting with typical BBS originating from La Réunion Island using sequencing (Sanger and high-throughput methods) and SNP array.

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Article Synopsis
  • Reunion Island has a higher prevalence of deafness (1.6/1000) compared to mainland France, with a study involving twelve children who have isolated bilateral prelingual profound deafness and vestibular issues.
  • These children had normal results in electroretinography and temporal bone CT scans, and a novel genetic mutation (LHFPL5) was identified through whole-exome sequencing in several families.
  • The presence of the same genetic variant in multiple families is linked to a common ancestor from 1693, and the patients' condition resembles a known murine model of hearing loss.
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Background: Pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (PAP) is very rare in children. Only a few small series have been published, with little information about long-term progression. The objective of our study was to describe the clinical, radiological and pathological features, and the long-term course of PAP in a cohort of 34 children from La Réunion Island.

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Context: Mutations in LMNA, encoding A-type lamins, lead to multiple laminopathies, including lipodystrophies, progeroid syndromes, and cardiomyopathies. Alterations in the prelamin-A posttranslational maturation, resulting in accumulation of farnesylated isoforms, cause human progeroid syndromes. Accumulation of mutant nonfarnesylated prelamin-A leads to cardiomyopathy or progeria in mice, but no data have been provided in humans.

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Purpose: Unverricht-Lundborg disease (ULD) is the most frequent form of progressive myoclonus epilepsy. ULD is caused mostly by a homozygous expansion of a dodecamer repeat in the cystatin B gene (CSTB) promoter. We present here a clinical and molecular study of 14 ULD patients originating from Reunion Island, a French island in the Indian Ocean.

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Article Synopsis
  • Unverricht-Lundborg disease (ULD) is a progressive myoclonus epilepsy primarily affecting populations in Finland and North Africa, linked to a repeat expansion in the CSTB gene.
  • A study analyzing 95 ULD chromosomes identified a founder effect in North African patients who predominantly shared a specific haplotype (A1), while West European Caucasians showed greater genetic diversity.
  • The research suggests that a common ancestor for these haplotypes may have existed around 2,500 years ago, indicating there are only a few founder mutations responsible for ULD.
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