0000000000628535
AUTHOR
Marilena Carmela Di Giacomo
Customised next-generation sequencing multigene panel to screen a large cohort of individuals with chromatin-related disorder
BackgroundThe regulation of the chromatin state by epigenetic mechanisms plays a central role in gene expression, cell function, and maintenance of cell identity. Hereditary disorders of chromatin regulation are a group of conditions caused by abnormalities of the various components of the epigenetic machinery, namely writers, erasers, readers, and chromatin remodelers. Although neurological dysfunction is almost ubiquitous in these disorders, the constellation of additional features characterizing many of these genes and the emerging clinical overlap among them indicate the existence of a community of syndromes. The introduction of high-throughput next generation sequencing (NGS) methods f…
DNA methylation episignature testing improves molecular diagnosis of Mendelian chromatinopathies
Abstract Purpose Chromatinopathies include more than 50 disorders caused by disease-causing variants of various components of chromatin structure and function. Many of these disorders exhibit unique genome-wide DNA methylation profiles, known as episignatures. In this study, the methylation profile of a large cohort of individuals with chromatinopathies was analyzed for episignature detection. Methods DNA methylation data was generated on extracted blood samples from 129 affected individuals with the Illumina Infinium EPIC arrays and analyzed using an established bioinformatic pipeline. Results The DNA methylation profiles matched and confirmed the sequence findings in both the discovery an…