Novel CIC variants identified in individuals with neurodevelopmental phenotypes.

Heterozygous pathogenic variants in CIC, which encodes a transcriptional repressor, have been identified in individuals with neurodevelopmental phenotypes. To date, 11 CIC variants have been associated with the CIC-related neurodevelopmental syndrome. Here, we describe three novel and one previously reported CIC variants in four individuals with neurodevelopmental delay. Notably, we report for the first time a de novo frameshift variant specific to the long isoform of CIC (CIC-L, NM_001304815.1:c.1100dup, p.Pro368AlafsTer16) in an individual with speech delay, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorder. Our investigation into the function of CIC-L reveals that partial loss of CIC-L leads to transcriptional derepression of CIC target genes. We also describe a missense variant (NM_015125.3:c.683G>A, p.Arg228Gln) in an individual with a history of speech delay and relapsed pre-B acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Functional studies of this variant suggest a partial loss of CIC transcriptional repressor activity. Our study expands the list of CIC pathogenic variants and contributes to the accumulating evidence that CIC haploinsufficiency or partial loss of function is a pathogenic mechanism causing neurodevelopmental phenotypes.

Capicua regulates the development of adult-born neurons in the hippocampus.

New neurons continuously arise from neural progenitor cells in the dentate gyrus of the adult hippocampus to support ongoing learning and memory formation. To generate functional adult-born neurons, neural progenitor cells proliferate to expand the precursor cell pool and differentiate into neurons. Newly generated cells then undergo postmitotic maturation to migrate to their final destination and develop elaborate dendritic branching, which allows them to receive input signals. Little is known about factors that regulate neuronal differentiation, migration, and dendrite maturation during adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Here, we show that the transcriptional repressor protein capicua (CIC) exhibits dynamic expression in the adult dentate gyrus. Conditional deletion of Cic from the mouse dentate gyrus compromises the adult neural progenitor cell pool without altering their proliferative potential. We further demonstrate that the loss of Cic impedes neuronal lineage development and disrupts dendritic arborization and migration of adult-born neurons. Our study uncovers a previously unrecognized role of CIC in neurogenesis of the adult dentate gyrus.