Massively parallel sequencing of patients with intellectual disability, congenital anomalies and/or autism spectrum disorders with a targeted gene panel

PLoS One. 2014 Apr 1;9(4):e93409. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0093409. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Developmental delay and/or intellectual disability (DD/ID) affects 1-3% of all children. At least half of these are thought to have a genetic etiology. Recent studies have shown that massively parallel sequencing (MPS) using a targeted gene panel is particularly suited for diagnostic testing for genetically heterogeneous conditions. We report on our experiences with using massively parallel sequencing of a targeted gene panel of 355 genes for investigating the genetic etiology of eight patients with a wide range of phenotypes including DD/ID, congenital anomalies and/or autism spectrum disorder. Targeted sequence enrichment was performed using the Agilent SureSelect Target Enrichment Kit and sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq2000 using paired-end reads. For all eight patients, 81-84% of the targeted regions achieved read depths of at least 20×, with average read depths overlapping targets ranging from 322× to 798×. Causative variants were successfully identified in two of the eight patients: a nonsense mutation in the ATRX gene and a canonical splice site mutation in the L1CAM gene. In a third patient, a canonical splice site variant in the USP9X gene could likely explain all or some of her clinical phenotypes. These results confirm the value of targeted MPS for investigating DD/ID in children for diagnostic purposes. However, targeted gene MPS was less likely to provide a genetic diagnosis for children whose phenotype includes autism.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Autism Spectrum Disorder / diagnosis
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder / genetics*
  • Congenital Abnormalities / diagnosis
  • Congenital Abnormalities / genetics*
  • DNA Mutational Analysis
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Genetic Association Studies
  • Genetic Variation
  • Genome-Wide Association Study*
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing*
  • Humans
  • Intellectual Disability / diagnosis
  • Intellectual Disability / genetics*
  • Male
  • Mutation
  • Phenotype
  • Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
  • RNA Splice Sites

Substances

  • RNA Splice Sites

Grants and funding

This study is funded by Grant number BMRC 06/1/50/19/485 from the Agency for Science and Technology and Research; and NMRC/PPG/KKH12010-Theme3 from the National Medical Research Council, Ministry of Health, Republic of Singapore. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.