TALPID3 controls centrosome and cell polarity and the human ortholog KIAA0586 is mutated in Joubert syndrome (JBTS23)

Joubert syndrome (JBTS) is a severe recessive neurodevelopmental ciliopathy which can affect several organ systems. Mutations in known JBTS genes account for approximately half of the cases. By homozygosity mapping and whole-exome sequencing, we identified a novel locus, JBTS23, with a homozygous splice site mutation in KIAA0586 (alias TALPID3), a known lethal ciliopathy locus in model organisms. Truncating KIAA0586 mutations were identified in two additional patients with JBTS. One mutation, c.428delG (p.Arg143Lysfs*4), is unexpectedly common in the general population and may be a major contributor to JBTS. We demonstrate KIAA0586 protein localization at the basal body in human and mouse p…

Multiple independent variants at the TERT locus are associated with telomere length and risks of breast and ovarian cancer

Journal article TERT-locus SNPs and leukocyte telomere measures are reportedly associated with risks of multiple cancers. Using the Illumina custom genotyping array iCOGs, we analyzed ~480 SNPs at the TERT locus in breast (n = 103,991), ovarian (n = 39,774) and BRCA1 mutation carrier (n = 11,705) cancer cases and controls. Leukocyte telomere measurements were also available for 53,724 participants. Most associations cluster into three independent peaks. The minor allele at the peak 1 SNP rs2736108 associates with longer telomeres (P = 5.8 × 10!-7), lower risks for estrogen receptor (ER)-negative (P = 1.0 × 10!-8) and BRCA1 mutation carrier (P = 1.1 × 10!-5) breast cancers and altered promot…

Genotyping NAT2 with only two SNPs (rs1041983 and rs1801280) outperforms the tagging SNP rs1495741 and is equivalent to the conventional 7-SNP NAT2 genotype

Genotyping N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) is of high relevance for individualized dosing of antituberculosis drugs and bladder cancer epidemiology. In this study we compared a recently published tagging single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) (rs1495741) to the conventional 7-SNP genotype (G191A, C282T, T341C, C481T, G590A, A803G and G857A haplotype pairs) and systematically analysed if novel SNP combinations outperform the latter. For this purpose, we studied 3177 individuals by PCR and phenotyped 344 individuals by the caffeine test. Although the tagSNP and the 7-SNP genotype showed a high degree of correlation (R=0.933, P0.0001) the 7-SNP genotype nevertheless outperformed the tagging SNP wit…

Author response: TALPID3 controls centrosome and cell polarity and the human ortholog KIAA0586 is mutated in Joubert syndrome (JBTS23)

NDST1 missense mutations in autosomal recessive intellectual disability.

NDST1 was recently proposed as a candidate gene for autosomal recessive intellectual disability in two families. It encodes a bifunctional GlcNAc N-deacetylase/N-sulfotransferase with important functions in heparan sulfate biosynthesis. In mice, Ndst1 is crucial for embryonic development and homozygous null mutations are perinatally lethal. We now report on two additional unrelated families with homozygous missense NDST1 mutations. All mutations described to date predict the substitution of conserved amino acids in the sulfotransferase domain, and mutation modeling predicts drastic alterations in the local protein conformation. Comparing the four families, we noticed significant overlap in …

Genome-wide association studies identify four ER negative-specific breast cancer risk loci

Estrogen receptor (ER)-negative tumors represent 20-30% of all breast cancers, with a higher proportion occurring in younger women and women of African ancestry. The etiology and clinical behavior of ER-negative tumors are different from those of tumors expressing ER (ER positive), including differences in genetic predisposition. To identify susceptibility loci specific to ER-negative disease, we combined in a metaanalysis 3 genome-wide association studies of 4,193 ER-negative breast cancer cases and 35,194 controls with a series of 40 follow-up studies (6,514 cases and 41,455 controls), genotyped using a custom Illumina array, iCOGS, developed by the Collaborative Oncological Gene-environm…