1. Biallelic splicing variants in the nucleolar 60S assembly factor RBM28 cause the ribosomopathy ANE syndrome.
- Author
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Bryant CJ, Lorea CF, de Almeida HL Jr, Weinert L, Vedolin L, Pinto E Vairo F, and Baserga SJ
- Subjects
- Adult, Alopecia genetics, Brazil, Endocrine System Diseases genetics, Exons, Female, HEK293 Cells, Hair metabolism, Humans, Infant, Intellectual Disability genetics, Male, Pedigree, RNA Precursors metabolism, RNA Processing, Post-Transcriptional, RNA, Ribosomal genetics, RNA, Ribosomal metabolism, Ribosome Subunits, Large genetics, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Young Adult, Alopecia metabolism, Cell Nucleolus metabolism, Endocrine System Diseases metabolism, Intellectual Disability metabolism, RNA Splicing, RNA-Binding Proteins metabolism, Ribosome Subunits, Large metabolism
- Abstract
Alopecia, neurologic defects, and endocrinopathy (ANE) syndrome is a rare ribosomopathy known to be caused by a p.(Leu351Pro) variant in the essential, conserved, nucleolar large ribosomal subunit (60S) assembly factor RBM28. We report the second family of ANE syndrome to date and a female pediatric ANE syndrome patient. The patient presented with alopecia, craniofacial malformations, hypoplastic pituitary, and hair and skin abnormalities. Unlike the previously reported patients with the p.(Leu351Pro) RBM28 variant, this ANE syndrome patient possesses biallelic precursor messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) splicing variants at the 5' splice sites of exon 5 (ΔE5) and exon 8 (ΔE8) of RBM28 (NM_018077.2:c.[541+1_541+2delinsA]; [946G > T]). In silico analyses and minigene splicing experiments in cells indicate that each splice variant specifically causes skipping of its respective mutant exon. Because the ΔE5 variant results in an in-frame 31 amino acid deletion (p.(Asp150_Lys180del)) in RBM28 while the ΔE8 variant leads to a premature stop codon in exon 9, we predicted that the ΔE5 variant would produce partially functional RBM28 but the ΔE8 variant would not produce functional protein. Using a yeast model, we demonstrate that the ΔE5 variant does indeed lead to reduced overall growth and large subunit ribosomal RNA (rRNA) production and pre-rRNA processing. In contrast, the ΔE8 variant is comparably null, implying that the partially functional ΔE5 RBM28 protein enables survival but precludes correct development. This discovery further defines the underlying molecular pathology of ANE syndrome to include genetic variants that cause aberrant splicing in RBM28 pre-mRNA and highlights the centrality of nucleolar processes in human genetic disease., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest., (Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)
- Published
- 2021
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