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Scientific article
English

De novo loss- or gain-of-function mutations in KCNA2 cause epileptic encephalopathy

Contributors

Korff, Christian

Published in

Nature genetics, vol. 47, no. 4, p. 393-399

Publication date

2015

Abstract

Epileptic encephalopathies are a phenotypically and genetically heterogeneous group of severe epilepsies accompanied by intellectual disability and other neurodevelopmental features. Using next-generation sequencing, we identified four different de novo mutations in KCNA2, encoding the potassium channel KV1.2, in six isolated patients with epileptic encephalopathy (one mutation recurred three times independently). Four individuals presented with febrile and multiple afebrile, often focal seizure types, multifocal epileptiform discharges strongly activated by sleep, mild to moderate intellectual disability, delayed speech development and sometimes ataxia. Functional studies of the two mutations associated with this phenotype showed almost complete loss of function with a dominant-negative effect. Two further individuals presented with a different and more severe epileptic encephalopathy phenotype. They carried mutations inducing a drastic gain-of-function effect leading to permanently open channels. These results establish KCNA2 as a new gene involved in human neurodevelopmental disorders through two different mechanisms, predicting either hyperexcitability or electrical silencing of KV1.2-expressing neurons.

Keywords

  • Adult
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Cohort Studies
  • Epilepsy/genetics
  • Female
  • Genetic Predisposition to Disease
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Kv1.2 Potassium Channel/genetics
  • Male
  • Mutation
  • Pedigree
  • Spasms, Infantile/genetics
  • Young Adult

UNIGE affiliation entities

Citation (ISO format)

KORFF, Christian. De novo loss- or gain-of-function mutations in KCNA2 cause epileptic encephalopathy. In: Nature genetics, 2015, vol. 47, n° 4, p. 393–399. doi: 10.1038/ng.3239

Main files (1)

Article (Published version)

Identifiers

Journal ISSN

1061-4036
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1downloads

Technical informations

Creation

17/09/2015 13:04:00

First validation

17/09/2015 13:04:00

Update

14/03/2023 23:44:35

Status update

14/03/2023 23:44:34

Last indexation

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