Key result
Noncanonical near-splice mutations account for ~27% of disease-causing splice-disrupting de novo mutations in developmental disorders.
Why the study?
Mutations that perturb normal pre-mRNA splicing are significant contributors to human disease, motivating investigation of selection around splice sites and quantification of the contribution of splicing mutations to developmental disorders.
Observational (n=7,833)
Yes
Absolute Event Rate: 27% vs 73%
A significant proportion of pathogenic splicing mutations in developmental disorders occur at noncanonical positions and are currently underrepresented in public databases.
Noncanonical splice variants merit scrutiny in developmental disorder diagnostics; supports expanded database annotation but leaves clinical prioritization open.
Mutations that perturb normal pre-mRNA splicing are significant contributors to human disease. We used exome sequencing data from 7833 probands with developmental disorders (DDs) and their unaffected parents, as well as more than 60,000 aggregated exomes from the Exome Aggregation Consortium, to investigate selection around the splice sites and quantify the contribution of splicing mutations to DDs. Patterns of purifying selection, a deficit of variants in highly constrained genes in healthy subjects, and excess de novo mutations in patients highlighted particular positions within and around the consensus splice site of greater functional relevance. By using mutational burden analyses in this large cohort of proband-parent trios, we could estimate in an unbiased manner the relative contributions of mutations at canonical dinucleotides (73%) and flanking noncanonical positions (27%), and calculate the positive predictive value of pathogenicity for different classes of mutations. We identified 18 patients with likely diagnostic de novo mutations in dominant DD-associated genes at noncanonical positions in splice sites. We estimate 35%-40% of pathogenic variants in noncanonical splice site positions are missing from public databases.
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Lord et al. (2018) conducted an observational in Developmental disorders (n=7,833). Mutations at noncanonical near-splice positions vs. Mutations at canonical splice site positions was evaluated on Proportion of disease-causing splice-disrupting de novo mutations (95% CI 18-39). Mutations at noncanonical near-splice positions account for an estimated 27% of disease-causing splice-disrupting de novo mutations in developmental disorders.
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