Multi-omics in MECP2 duplication syndrome patients and carriers.
Abstract
MECP2 duplication syndrome (MDS) is an X-linked
neurodevelopmental disorder caused by the gain of dose of at least the
genes MECP2 and IRAK1 and is characterised by intellectual
disability (ID), developmental delay, hypotonia, epilepsy and recurrent
infections. It mainly affects males, and females can be affected or
asymptomatic carriers. Rett syndrome (RTT) is mainly triggered by loss
of function mutations in MECP2 and is a well described syndrome
that presents ID, epilepsy, lack of purposeful hand use and impaired
speech, among others. As a result of implementing omics technology,
altered biological pathways in human RTT samples have been reported, but
such molecular characterisation has not been performed in MDS patients.
We gathered human skin fibroblasts from 17 patients with MDS, 10
MECP2 duplication carrier mothers and 21 RTT patients, and
performed multi-omics (RNAseq and proteomics) analysis. Here, we provide
a thorough description and compare the shared and specific dysregulated
biological processes between the cohorts. We also highlight the genes
TMOD2, SRGAP1, COPS2, CNPY2, IGF2BP1, MOB2, VASP,
FZD7, ECSIT and KIF3B as biomarker and therapeutic target
candidates due to their implication in neuronal functions. Defining the
RNA and protein profiles has shown that our four cohorts are less alike
than expected by their shared phenotypes.