Publications by authors named "Kirsi Kiiski"

Structural variants (SVs) of the nebulin gene (NEB), including intragenic duplications, deletions, and copy number variation of the triplicate region, are an established cause of recessively inherited nemaline myopathies and related neuromuscular disorders. Large deletions have been shown to cause dominantly inherited distal myopathies. Here we provide an overview of 35 families with muscle disorders caused by such SVs in NEB.

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Introduction: Structural variants (SVs) of the nebulin gene (), including intragenic duplications, deletions, and copy number variation of the triplicate region, are an established cause of recessively inherited nemaline myopathies and related neuromuscular disorders. Large deletions have been shown to cause dominantly inherited distal myopathies. Here we provide an overview of 35 families with muscle disorders caused by such SVs in .

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We describe three patients with asymmetric congenital myopathy without definite nemaline bodies and one patient with severe nemaline myopathy. In all four patients, the phenotype had been caused by pathogenic missense variants in ACTA1 leading to the same amino acid change, p.(Gly247Arg).

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Background: Pathogenic variants in the TPM3 gene, encoding slow skeletal muscle α-tropomyosin account for less than 5% of nemaline myopathy cases. Dominantly inherited or de novo missense variants in TPM3 are more common than recessive loss-of-function variants. The recessive variants reported to date seem to affect either the 5' or the 3' end of the skeletal muscle-specific TPM3 transcript.

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Background: Deletions covering the entire or partial JARID2 gene as well as pathogenic single nucleotide variants leading to haploinsufficiency of JARID2 have recently been shown to cause a clinically distinct neurodevelopmental syndrome. Here, we present a previously undescribed partial de novo duplication of the JARID2 gene in a patient displaying features similar to those of patients with JARID2 loss-of-function variants.

Case Report: The index patient presents with abnormalities in gross motor skills and speech development as well as neuropsychiatric disorders.

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Intragenic segmental duplication regions are potential hotspots for recurrent copy number variation and possible pathogenic aberrations. Two large sarcomeric genes, nebulin and titin, both contain such segmental duplication regions. Using our custom Comparative Genomic Hybridisation array, we have previously shown that a gain or loss of more than one copy of the repeated block of the nebulin triplicate region constitutes a recessive pathogenic mutation.

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The human genome contains repetitive regions, such as segmental duplications, known to be prone to copy number variation. Segmental duplications are highly identical and homologous sequences, posing a specific challenge for most mutation detection methods. The giant nebulin gene is expressed in skeletal muscle.

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Article Synopsis
  • A deletion mutation in the nebulin gene was discovered in a 26-year-old Finnish female patient with distal congenital myopathy and asymmetric muscle weakness.
  • Muscle biopsies showed characteristics like predominance of type 1 fibers and central nuclei, but lacked traditional nemaline bodies.
  • The mutation was identified through advanced genomic analysis techniques, and the clinical symptoms mirrored those of other similar conditions but with unique asymmetrical weakness not previously reported.
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We report the first family with a dominantly inherited mutation of the nebulin gene (NEB). This ∼100 kb in-frame deletion encompasses NEB exons 14-89, causing distal nemaline/cap myopathy in a three-generation family. It is the largest deletion characterized in NEB hitherto.

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Objective: Copy number variants (CNVs) were analyzed from next-generation sequencing data, with the aim of improving diagnostic yield in skeletal muscle disorder cases.

Methods: Four publicly available bioinformatic analytic tools were used to analyze CNVs from sequencing data from patients with muscle diseases. The patients were previously analyzed with a targeted gene panel for single nucleotide variants and small insertions and deletions, without achieving final diagnosis.

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Background: Our previous array, the Comparative Genomic Hybridisation design (CGH-array) for nemaline myopathy (NM), named the NM-CGH array, revealed pathogenic copy number variation (CNV) in the genes for nebulin (NEB) and tropomyosin 3 (TPM3), as well as recurrent CNVs in the segmental duplication (SD), i.e. triplicate, region of NEB (TRI, exons 82-89, 90-97, 98-105).

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Background: Congenital myopathies (CM) are a group of rare inherited muscle disorders characterized by particular histopathological alterations on muscle biopsy. Core-rod myopathy is a CM presenting with cores and rods as distinctive muscle morphological features.

Methods/results: We describe 3 young patients presenting congenital core-rod myopathy with bilateral foot-drop associated with autosomal recessive nebulin gene (NEB) mutations detected by exome sequencing.

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Recently, new large variants have been identified in the nebulin gene (NEB) causing nemaline myopathy (NM). NM constitutes a heterogeneous group of disorders among the congenital myopathies, and disease-causing variants in NEB are a main cause of the recessively inherited form of NM. NEB consists of 183 exons and it includes homologous sequences such as a 32-kb triplicate region (TRI), where eight exons are repeated three times (exons 82-89, 90-97, 98-105).

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Article Synopsis
  • Recent advances in analysis methods and variant identification prompt the need for an updated overview of the nebulin gene (NEB), which is linked to various myopathies, especially nemaline myopathy (NM).
  • The study presents 159 families with disease-causing NEB variants, including previously unreported cases, highlighting 126 unpublished variants alongside 86 previously published ones.
  • Analysis of variants shows that pathogenic changes are a small fraction (∼7%) of total coding variants in NEB, indicating that the gene can handle significant amino acid changes without leading to common disorders, but complicating genotype-phenotype correlation efforts.
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