Two Angelman families with unusually advanced neurodevelopment carry a start codon variant in the most highly expressed UBE3A isoform

Am J Med Genet A. 2018 Jul;176(7):1641-1647. doi: 10.1002/ajmg.a.38831. Epub 2018 May 7.

Abstract

We present three children from two unrelated families with Angelman syndrome (AS) whose developmental skills are far more advanced than any other non-mosaic AS individual ever reported. All have normal gait and use syntactic language spontaneously to express their needs. All of them have a c.2T > C (p.Met1Thr) variant in UBE3A, which abrogates the start codon of isoform 1, but not of isoforms 2 and 3. This variant was maternally inherited in one set of siblings, but de novo in the other child from the unrelated family. This report underscores the importance of considering AS in the differential diagnosis even in the presence of syntactic speech.

Keywords: child development; genetic association studies; inborn genetic diseases; rare diseases; siblings.

Publication types

  • Case Reports
  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Angelman Syndrome / genetics
  • Angelman Syndrome / pathology*
  • Child
  • Child Development*
  • Codon, Initiator*
  • Developmental Disabilities / genetics
  • Developmental Disabilities / pathology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mutation*
  • Nervous System / pathology*
  • Pedigree
  • Phenotype
  • Protein Isoforms
  • Siblings
  • Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases / genetics*

Substances

  • Codon, Initiator
  • Protein Isoforms
  • UBE3A protein, human
  • Ubiquitin-Protein Ligases