A novel GATA3 frameshift mutation causes hypoparathyroidism, sensorineural deafness, and renal dysplasia syndrome.

Background: Hypoparathyroidism, sensorineural deafness, and renal dysplasia (HDR) syndrome (Barakat syndrome) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder caused by mutations in the gene encoding GATA3 on chromosome 10p14. Method: Informed consent was obtained from a 38-year-old female patient. 5 mL of venous blood was collected and sent for whole-exome sequencing. GATA3 constructs of both wild-type and mutant were transfected into HEK-293 T cells. Three-dimensional modeling, luciferase-reporter gene test, western blotting and cellular immunofluorescence were used to evaluate the effect of the mutation. Results: A novel frameshift mutation c. 677dup(p.Pro227AlafsTer77), named P227Afs, was found in GATA3. Three-dimensional modeling revealed that the mutation caused the loss of the dual zinc finger structures 1 and 2 (ZNF1 and ZNF2) of the synthesized protein. Expression of wild-type GATA3 produced a six-fold increase in luciferase activity when compared with pcDNA3.1 vector only (P < 0.001), whereas the P227Afs mutant showed no increase. The mutation significantly reduced the transcriptional activity of GATA3. Immunofluorescence and western blotting analyses demonstrated that the mutation changed the nuclear location of GATA3 and caused difficulty in nuclearization. Conclusion: A novel heterozygous frameshift mutation in GATA3 was identified and showed to result in difficult nuclearization, and a dominant-negative effect on the wild-type.

[Immune efficacy of rabies virus glycoprotein expressed by baculovirus vector].

To construct a recombinant baculovirus expressing glycoprotein (GP) of RV SRV9 strain and test the immunological efficacy in mice, open reading frame of rabies virus GP gene of SRV9 strain was cloned into the shuttle vector Bacmid to construct the recombinant shuttle plasmid Bacmid-G and transfection was performed into S f9 cells with the recombinant shuttle plasmid. CPE appeared in cell cultures was identified by electronmicroscopy. Western-blot, IFA and immunity tests in mice were performed to identify the immunoreactivity and immunogenicity of the expression products. Our results showed a recombinant baculovirus expressing GP protein of rabies virus SRV9 was obtained. The expression products possessed a favorable immunogenicity and fall immunized mice could develop 100% protective level of anti-rabies neutralizing antibody. In conclusion, The SRV9 glycoprotein expressed by the recombinant baculovirus in this study had good immunogenicity and could induce anti-rabies neutralizing antibody, which laid the foundation of further development of rabies subunit vaccine.