Michael Spiller | PubMed Health

PubMed2025

Pathogenic XPO1 variants cause a dominant neurodevelopmental disorder.

PURPOSE: XPO1 functions in key cellular processes, including nucleo-cytoplasmic export and mitosis. The gene is deleted in a subset of patients with the 2p15p16.1 microdeletion syndrome; however, no monogenic XPO1-related disorder has been described to date. METHODS: We collected clinical data of individuals with de novo XPO1 variants through online matchmaking. We used Drosophila to study XPO1 function in development and habituation learning. RESULTS: A total of 22 individuals met the criteria to be included in the main study cohort. Of these, half have putative loss-of-function variants, and half have coding variants (10 missense and 1 in-frame deletion variant). We found an overlapping phenotype, consistent with a monogenic neurodevelopmental disorder. We demonstrate XPO1 functions in development by ubiquitous and neuron-specific knockdown in Drosophila. GABAergic neuron specific knockdown flies demonstrated impaired habituation. CONCLUSION: Our results establish XPO1 as a novel dominant monogenic neurodevelopmental disorder gene and demonstrate a central role for XPO1 in development.

Exportin 1 Protein↗

PubMed2024

Expanding the phenotype and genotype spectrum of TAOK1 neurodevelopmental disorder and delineating TAOK2 neurodevelopmental disorder.

PURPOSE: The thousand and one kinase (TAOK) proteins are a group of serine/threonine-protein kinases involved in signaling pathways, cytoskeleton regulation, and neuronal development. TAOK1 variants are associated with a neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) characterized by distinctive facial features, hypotonia, and feeding difficulties. TAOK2 variants have been reported to be associated with autism and early-onset obesity. However, a distinct TAOK2-NDD has not yet been delineated. METHODS: We retrospectively studied the clinical and genetic data of individuals recruited from several centers with TAOK1 and TAOK2 variants that were detected through exome and genome sequencing. RESULTS: We report 50 individuals with TAOK1 variants with associated phenotypes, including neurodevelopmental abnormalities (100%), macrocephaly (83%), and hypotonia (58%). We report male genital anomalies and hypoglycemia as novel phenotypes. Thirty-seven unique TAOK1 variants were identified. Most of the missense variants clustered in the protein kinase domain at residues that are intolerant to missense variation. We report 10 individuals with TAOK2 variants with associated phenotypes, including neurodevelopmental abnormalities (100%), macrocephaly (75%), autism (75%), and obesity (70%). CONCLUSION: We describe the largest cohort of TAOK1-NDD to date, to our knowledge, expanding its phenotype and genotype spectrum with 30 novel variants. We delineated the phenotype of a novel TAOK2-NDD associated with neurodevelopmental abnormalities, autism, macrocephaly, and obesity.

Humans↗