Physiology and Clinical Manifestations of Pathologic Cranial Suture Widening.

Cranial sutures are complex structures integrating mechanical forces with osteogenesis which are often affected in craniofacial syndromes. While premature fusion is frequently described, rare pathological widening of cranial sutures is a comparatively understudied phenomenon. This narrative review aims to bring to light the biologically variable underlying causes of widened sutures and persistent fontanelles leading to a common outcome. The authors herein present four syndromes, selected from a literature review, and their identified biological mechanisms in the context of altered suture physiology, exploring the roles of progenitor cell differentiation, extracellular matrix production, mineralization, and bone resorption. This article illustrates the gaps in understanding of complex craniofacial disorders, and the potential for further unification of genetics, cellular biology, and clinical pillars of health science research to improve treatment outcomes for patients.

Diagnostic yield of clinical exome sequencing in adulthood in medical genetics clinics.

Clinical exome sequencing (ES) is the most comprehensive genomic test to identify underlying genetic diseases in Canada. We performed this retrospective cohort study to investigate the diagnostic yield of clinical ES in adulthood. Inclusion criteria were: (1) Adult patients ≥18 years old; (2) Patients underwent clinical ES between January 1 and December 31, 2021; (3) Patients were seen in the Department of Medical Genetics. We reviewed patient charts. We applied American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics and the Association for Molecular Pathology variant classification guidelines for interpretation of variants. Non-parametric Fisher's exact statistical test was used. Seventy-seven patients underwent clinical ES. Fourteen different genetic diseases were confirmed in 15 patients: FBXO11, MYH7, MED13L, NSD2, ANKRD11 (n = 2), SHANK3, RHOBTB2, CDKL5, TRIO, TCF4, SCN1, SMAD3, POGZ, and EIF2B3 diseases. The diagnostic yield of clinical ES was 19.5%. Patients with a genetic diagnosis had a significantly higher frequency of neurodevelopmental disorders than those with no genetic diagnosis (p = 0.00339). The diagnostic yield of clinical ES was the highest in patients with seizures (35.7%), and with progressive neurodegenerative diseases (33.3%). Clinical ES is a helpful genomic test to provide genetic diagnoses to the patients who are referred to medical genetic clinics due to suspected genetic diseases in adulthood to end their diagnostic odyssey. Targeted next generation sequencing panels for specific phenotypes may decrease the cost of genomic test in adulthood.

Prenatal Genetic Testing in the Era of Next Generation Sequencing: A One-Center Canadian Experience.

The introduction of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies has revolutionized the practice of Medical Genetics, and despite initial reticence in its application to prenatal genetics (PG), it is becoming gradually routine, subject to availability. Guidance for the clinical implementation of NGS in PG, in particular whole exome sequencing (ES), has been provided by several professional societies with multiple clinical studies quoting a wide range of testing yields. ES was introduced in our tertiary care center in 2017; however, its use in relation to prenatally assessed cases has been limited to the postnatal period. In this study, we review our approach to prenatal testing including the use of microarray (CMA), and NGS technology (gene panels, ES) over a period of three years. The overall diagnostic yield was 30.4%, with 43.2% of those diagnoses being obtained through CMA, and the majority by using NGS technology (42% through gene panels and 16.6% by ES testing, respectively). Of these, 43.4% of the diagnoses were obtained during ongoing pregnancies. Seventy percent of the abnormal pregnancies tested went undiagnosed. We are providing a contemporary, one tertiary care center retrospective view of a real-life PG practice in the context of an evolving use of NGS within a Canadian public health care system that may apply to many similar jurisdictions around the world.

Nucleocytoplasmic transport of the RNA-binding protein CELF2 regulates neural stem cell fates.

The development of the cerebral cortex requires balanced expansion and differentiation of neural stem/progenitor cells (NPCs), which rely on precise regulation of gene expression. Because NPCs often exhibit transcriptional priming of cell-fate-determination genes, the ultimate output of these genes for fate decisions must be carefully controlled in a timely fashion at the post-transcriptional level, but how that is achieved is poorly understood. Here, we report that de novo missense variants in an RNA-binding protein CELF2 cause human cortical malformations and perturb NPC fate decisions in mice by disrupting CELF2 nucleocytoplasmic transport. In self-renewing NPCs, CELF2 resides in the cytoplasm, where it represses mRNAs encoding cell fate regulators and neurodevelopmental disorder-related factors. The translocation of CELF2 into the nucleus releases mRNA for translation and thereby triggers NPC differentiation. Our results reveal that CELF2 translocation between subcellular compartments orchestrates mRNA at the translational level to instruct cell fates in cortical development.

Failure of NIPT to detect constitutional chromoanasynthesis involving chromosome 21 in a case of fetal hydrops-A case report.

We report a case of a de novo ring 21 complex chromosomal rearrangement in a fetus presenting with hydrops. Noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) failed to detect the imbalance. This case highlights the need to understand the various limitations and strengths of NIPT technology when counseling patients.

The CTCF insulator protein forms an unusual DNA structure.

BACKGROUND: The CTCF insulator protein is a highly conserved zinc finger protein that has been implicated in many aspects of gene regulation and nuclear organization. The protein has been hypothesized to organize the human genome by forming DNA loops. RESULTS: In this paper, we report biochemical evidence to support the role for CTCF in forming DNA loops. We have measured DNA bending by CTCF at the chicken HS4 ß-globin FII insulator element in vitro and have observed a unique DNA structure with aberrant electrophoretic mobility which we believe to be a DNA loop. CTCF is able to form this unusual DNA structure at two other binding sites: the c-myc P2 promoter and the chicken F1 lysozyme gene silencer. We also demonstrate that the length though not the sequence of the DNA downstream of the binding site is important for the ability of CTCF to form this unusual DNA structure. We hypothesize that a single CTCF protein molecule is able to act as a "looper" possibly through the use of several of its zinc fingers. CONCLUSIONS: CTCF is able to form an unusual DNA structure through the zinc finger domain of the protein. This unusual DNA structure is formed in a directional manner by the CTCF protein. The findings described in this paper suggest mechanisms by which CTCF is able to form DNA loops, organize the mammalian genome and function as an insulator protein.

The CTCF insulator protein is posttranslationally modified by SUMO.

The CTCF protein is a highly conserved zinc finger protein that is implicated in many aspects of gene regulation and nuclear organization. Its functions include the ability to act as a repressor of genes, including the c-myc oncogene. In this paper, we show that the CTCF protein can be posttranslationally modified by the small ubiquitin-like protein SUMO. CTCF is SUMOylated both in vivo and in vitro, and we identify two major sites of SUMOylation in the protein. The posttranslational modification of CTCF by the SUMO proteins does not affect its ability to bind to DNA in vitro. SUMOylation of CTCF contributes to the repressive function of CTCF on the c-myc P2 promoter. We also found that CTCF and the repressive Polycomb protein, Pc2, are colocalized to nuclear Polycomb bodies. The Pc2 protein may act as a SUMO E3 ligase for CTCF, strongly enhancing its modification by SUMO 2 and 3. These studies expand the repertoire of posttranslational modifications of CTCF and suggest roles for such modifications in its regulation of epigenetic states.

Identifying smokers with a medical extraction system.

The Clinical Language Understanding group at Nuance Communications has developed a medical information extraction system that combines a rule-based extraction engine with machine learning algorithms to identify and categorize references to patient smoking in clinical reports. The extraction engine identifies smoking references; documents that contain no smoking references are classified as UNKNOWN. For the remaining documents, the extraction engine uses linguistic analysis to associate features such as status and time to smoking mentions. Machine learning is used to classify the documents based on these features. This approach shows overall accuracy in the 90s on all data sets used. Classification using engine-generated and word-based features outperforms classification using only word-based features for all data sets, although the difference gets smaller as the data set size increases. These techniques could be applied to identify other risk factors, such as drug and alcohol use, or a family history of a disease.