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Rare deleterious mutations of the gene EFR3A in autism spectrum disorders

Gupta, AR and Pirruccello, M and Cheng, F and Kang, HJ and Fernandez, TV and Baskin, JM and Choi, M and Liu, L and Ercan-Sencicek, AG and Murdoch, JD and Klei, L and Neale, BM and Franjic, D and Daly, MJ and Lifton, RP and De Camilli, P and Zhao, H and Šestan, N and State, MW (2014) Rare deleterious mutations of the gene EFR3A in autism spectrum disorders. Molecular Autism, 5 (1).

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Abstract

Background: Whole-exome sequencing studies in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have identified de novo mutations in novel candidate genes, including the synaptic gene Eighty-five Requiring 3A (EFR3A). EFR3A is a critical component of a protein complex required for the synthesis of the phosphoinositide PtdIns4P, which has a variety of functions at the neural synapse. We hypothesized that deleterious mutations in EFR3A would be significantly associated with ASD. Methods. We conducted a large case/control association study by deep resequencing and analysis of whole-exome data for coding and splice site variants in EFR3A. We determined the potential impact of these variants on protein structure and function by a variety of conservation measures and analysis of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Efr3 crystal structure. We also analyzed the expression pattern of EFR3A in human brain tissue. Results: Rare nonsynonymous mutations in EFR3A were more common among cases (16 / 2,196 = 0.73%) than matched controls (12 / 3,389 = 0.35%) and were statistically more common at conserved nucleotides based on an experiment-wide significance threshold (P = 0.0077, permutation test). Crystal structure analysis revealed that mutations likely to be deleterious were also statistically more common in cases than controls (P = 0.017, Fisher exact test). Furthermore, EFR3A is expressed in cortical neurons, including pyramidal neurons, during human fetal brain development in a pattern consistent with ASD-related genes, and it is strongly co-expressed (P < 2.2 × 10-16, Wilcoxon test) with a module of genes significantly associated with ASD. Conclusions: Rare deleterious mutations in EFR3A were found to be associated with ASD using an experiment-wide significance threshold. Synaptic phosphoinositide metabolism has been strongly implicated in syndromic forms of ASD. These data for EFR3A strengthen the evidence for the involvement of this pathway in idiopathic autism. © 2014 Gupta et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.


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Details

Item Type: Article
Status: Published
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Gupta, AR
Pirruccello, M
Cheng, F
Kang, HJ
Fernandez, TV
Baskin, JM
Choi, M
Liu, L
Ercan-Sencicek, AG
Murdoch, JD
Klei, L
Neale, BM
Franjic, D
Daly, MJ
Lifton, RP
De Camilli, P
Zhao, H
Šestan, N
State, MW
Date: 29 April 2014
Date Type: Publication
Journal or Publication Title: Molecular Autism
Volume: 5
Number: 1
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1186/2040-2392-5-31
Schools and Programs: School of Medicine > Psychiatry
Refereed: Yes
Date Deposited: 16 Dec 2016 18:45
Last Modified: 22 Jun 2021 13:56
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/29567

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