Autosomal-Recessive Mutations in MESD Cause Osteogenesis Imperfecta.

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) comprises a genetically heterogeneous group of skeletal fragility diseases. Here, we report on five independent families with a progressively deforming type of OI, in whom we identified four homozygous truncation or frameshift mutations in MESD. Affected individuals had recurrent fractures and at least one had oligodontia. MESD encodes an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) chaperone protein for the canonical Wingless-related integration site (WNT) signaling receptors LRP5 and LRP6. Because complete absence of MESD causes embryonic lethality in mice, we hypothesized that the OI-associated mutations are hypomorphic alleles since these mutations occur downstream of the chaperone activity domain but upstream of ER-retention domain. This would be consistent with the clinical phenotypes of skeletal fragility and oligodontia in persons deficient for LRP5 and LRP6, respectively. When we expressed wild-type (WT) and mutant MESD in HEK293T cells, we detected WT MESD in cell lysate but not in conditioned medium, whereas the converse was true for mutant MESD. We observed that both WT and mutant MESD retained the ability to chaperone LRP5. Thus, OI-associated MESD mutations produce hypomorphic alleles whose failure to remain within the ER significantly reduces but does not completely eliminate LRP5 and LRP6 trafficking. Since these individuals have no eye abnormalities (which occur in individuals completely lacking LRP5) and have neither limb nor brain patterning defects (both of which occur in mice completely lacking LRP6), we infer that bone mass accrual and dental patterning are more sensitive to reduced canonical WNT signaling than are other developmental processes. Biologic agents that can increase LRP5 and LRP6-mediated WNT signaling could benefit individuals with MESD-associated OI.

Craniofacial abnormalities result from knock down of nonsyndromic clefting gene, crispld2, in zebrafish.

Nonsyndromic cleft lip and palate (NSCLP), a common birth defect, affects 4,000 newborns in the US each year. Previously, we described an association between CRISPLD2 and NSCLP and showed Crispld2 expression in the murine palate. These results suggested that a perturbation in CRISPLD2 activity affects craniofacial development. Here, we describe crispld2 expression and the phenotypic consequence of its loss of function in zebrafish. crispld2 was expressed at all stages of zebrafish morphogenesis examined and localized to the rostral end by 1-day postfertilization. Morpholino knockdown of crispld2 resulted in significant jaw and palatal abnormalities in a dose-dependent manner. Loss of crispld2 caused aberrant patterning of neural crest cells (NCC) suggesting that crispld2 is necessary for normal NCC formation. Altogether, we show that crispld2 plays a significant role in the development of the zebrafish craniofacies and alteration of normal protein levels disturbs palate and jaw formation. These data provide support for a role of CRISPLD2 in NSCLP.

PIK3CA activating mutations in facial infiltrating lipomatosis.

BACKGROUND: Facial infiltrating lipomatosis is a nonheritable disorder characterized by hemifacial soft-tissue and skeletal overgrowth, precocious dental development, macrodontia, hemimacroglossia, and mucosal neuromas. The authors tested the hypothesis that this condition is caused by a somatic mutation in the phosphatidylinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) signaling pathway, which has been indicted in other anomalies with overgrowth. METHODS: The authors extracted DNA from abnormal tissue in six individuals, generated sequencing libraries, enriched the libraries for 26 genes involved in the PI3K pathway, and designed and applied a sequential filtering strategy to analyze the sequence data for mosaic mutations. RESULTS: Unfiltered sequence data contained variant reads affecting ~12 percent of basepairs in the targeted genes. Filtering reduced the fraction of targeted basepairs containing variant reads to ~0.008 percent, allowing the authors to identify causal missense mutations in PIK3CA (p.E453K, p.E542K, p.H1047R, or p.H1047L) in each affected tissue sample. CONCLUSIONS: Affected tissue from individuals with facial infiltrating lipomatosis contains PIK3CA mutations that have previously been reported in cancers and in affected tissue from other nonheritable, overgrowth disorders, including congenital lipomatous overgrowth, vascular, epidermal, and skeletal anomalies syndrome, Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome, hemimegalencephaly, fibroadipose overgrowth, and macrodactyly. Because PIK3CA encodes a catalytic subunit of PI3K, and in vitro studies have shown that the overgrowth-associated mutations increase this enzyme's activity, PI3K inhibitors currently in clinical trials for patients with cancer may have a therapeutic role in patients with facial infiltrating lipomatosis. The strategy used to identify somatic mutations in patients with facial infiltrating lipomatosis is applicable to other somatic mosaic disorders that have allelic heterogeneity.

Wwp2 is essential for palatogenesis mediated by the interaction between Sox9 and mediator subunit 25.

Sox9 is a direct transcriptional activator of cartilage-specific extracellular matrix genes and has essential roles in chondrogenesis. Mutations in or around the SOX9 gene cause campomelic dysplasia or Pierre Robin Sequence. However, Sox9-dependent transcriptional control in chondrogenesis remains largely unknown. Here we identify Wwp2 as a direct target of Sox9. Wwp2 interacts physically with Sox9 and is associated with Sox9 transcriptional activity via its nuclear translocation. A yeast two-hybrid screen using a cDNA library reveals that Wwp2 interacts with Med25, a component of the Mediator complex. The positive regulation of Sox9 transcriptional activity by Wwp2 is mediated by the binding between Sox9 and Med25. In zebrafish, morpholino-mediated knockdown of either wwp2 or med25 induces palatal malformation, which is comparable to that in sox9 mutants. These results provide evidence that the regulatory interaction between Sox9, Wwp2 and Med25 defines the Sox9 transcriptional mechanisms of chondrogenesis in the forming palate.