POLR1C variants dysregulate splicing and cause hypomyelinating leukodystrophy

• Published in: Neurology. Genetics Vol. 6; no. 6; p. e524
• Main Authors: Kashiki, Hitoshi, Li, Heng, Miyamoto, Sachiko, Ueno, Hiroe, Tsurusaki, Yoshinori, Ikeda, Chizuru, Kurata, Hirofumi, Okada, Takumi, Shimazu, Tomoyuki, Imamura, Hoseki, Enomoto, Yumi, Takanashi, Jun-Ichi, Kurosawa, Kenji, Saitsu, Hirotomo, Inoue, Ken
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wolters Kluwer 01.12.2020
• ISSN: 2376-7839; 2376-7839
• DOI: 10.1212/NXG.0000000000000524

To further clarify the molecular pathogenesis of RNA polymerase III (Pol III)-related leukodystrophy caused by biallelic variants at a cellular level and potential effects on its downstream genes. Exome analysis and molecular functional studies using cell expression and long-read sequencing analyses were performed on 1 family with hypomyelinating leukodystrophy showing no clinical and MRI findings characteristic of Pol III-related leukodystrophy other than hypomyelination. Biallelic novel alterations, c.167T>A, p.M56K and c.595A>T, p.I199F, were identified as causal variants. Functional analyses showed that these variants not only resulted in altered protein subcellular localization and decreased protein expression but also caused abnormal inclusion of introns in 85% of the transcripts in patient cells. Unexpectedly, allelic segregation analysis in each carrier parent revealed that each heterozygous variant also caused the inclusion of introns on both mutant and wild-type alleles. These findings suggest that the abnormal splicing is not direct consequences of the variants, but rather reflect the downstream effect of the variants in dysregulating splicing of , and potentially other target genes. The lack of characteristic clinical findings in this family confirmed the broad clinical spectrum of Pol III-related leukodystrophy. Molecular studies suggested that dysregulation of splicing is the potential downstream pathomechanism for variants.