Phenotypic spectrum of iron-sulfur cluster assembly gene IBA57 mutations: c.286 T > C identified as a hotspot mutation in Chinese patients with a stable natural history.
Mutations in IBA57 disrupt iron-sulfur clusters maturation, causing a rare mitochondrial disease. Clinical manifestations vary from neonatal lethality to childhood-onset spastic paraparesis, yet the ethnic heterogeneity and natural history remain unclear, necessitating further exploration. This study aimed to delineate the genotype-phenotype correlation of IBA57 mutations by analyzing diverse clinical presentations. We report 11 Chinese patients and include literature-reported cases, totaling 61 patients enrolled for analysis. Clinical, neuroimaging, genetic, and disease progression information were collected. Among these, 46 presented as multiple mitochondrial dysfunctions syndrome 3 (MMDS3), with 58.7% originating from Chinese population. Based on disease course, we propose three clinical subtypes: neonatal, infant and childhood subtypes. Neonatal cases universally displayed hypotonia and respiratory distress at presentation, deceased within three months. Most infancy and childhood cases exhibited developmental regression and impaired motor function. Cavitating leukoencephalopathy was a typical neuroimaging finding in MMDS3 patients. The c.286 T > C mutation was reported in 85.2% of Chinese patients. A significantly lower mortality rate was observed compared to the non-Chinese group (P = 0.002), with a survival rate exceeding 90% at 5 years, indicating a relatively stable disease progression. Fifteen cases from three families manifested the spastic paraplegia 74 phenotype, demonstrating normal development before onset, with common clinical manifestations including spastic paraplegia (14/15), visual impairment (10/13), and peripheral neuropathy (9/13). In conclusion, this study indicates a hotspot mutation in Chinese and analyses the disease progression with different clinical subtypes.
Jiang H
,Xu C
,Duan R
,Liu Z
,Ren X
,Li J
,Chen C
,Wang H
,Han T
,Tian X
,Duan X
,Song M
,Li T
,Fang F
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Can a Liquid Biopsy Detect Circulating Tumor DNA With Low-passage Whole-genome Sequencing in Patients With a Sarcoma? A Pilot Evaluation.
A liquid biopsy is a test that evaluates the status of a disease by analyzing a sample of bodily fluid, most commonly blood. In recent years, there has been progress in the development and clinical application of liquid biopsy methods to identify blood-based, tumor-specific biomarkers for many cancer types. However, the implementation of these technologies to aid in the treatment of patients who have a sarcoma remains behind other fields of cancer medicine. For this study, we chose to evaluate a sarcoma liquid biopsy based on circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). All human beings have normal cell-free DNA (cfDNA) circulating in the blood. In contrast with cfDNA, ctDNA is genetic material present in the blood stream that is derived from a tumor. ctDNA carries the unique genomic fingerprint of the tumor with changes that are not present in normal circulating cfDNA. A successful ctDNA liquid biopsy must be able to target these tumor-specific genetic alterations. For instance, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations are common in lung cancers, and ctDNA liquid biopsies are currently in clinical use to evaluate the status of disease in patients who have a lung cancer by detecting EGFR mutations in the blood. As opposed to many carcinomas, sarcomas do not have common recurrent mutations that could serve as the foundation to a ctDNA liquid biopsy. However, many sarcomas have structural changes to their chromosomes, including gains and losses of portions or entire chromosomes, known as copy number alterations (CNAs), that could serve as a target for a ctDNA liquid biopsy. Murine double minute 2 (MDM2) amplification in select lipomatous tumors or parosteal osteosarcoma is an example of a CNA due to the presence of extra copies of a segment of the long arm of chromosome 12. Since a majority of sarcomas demonstrate a complex karyotype with numerous CNAs, a blood-based liquid biopsy strategy that searches for these CNAs may be able to detect the presence of sarcoma ctDNA. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) is a next-generation sequencing technique that evaluates the entire genome. The depth of coverage of WGS refers to how detailed the sequencing is, like higher versus lower power on a microscope. WGS can be performed with high-depth sequencing (that is, > 60×), which can detect individual point mutations, or low-depth sequencing (that is, 0.1× to 5×), referred to as low-passage whole-genome sequencing (LP-WGS), which may not detect individual mutations but can detect structural chromosomal changes including gains and losses (that is, CNAs). While similar strategies have shown favorable early results for specific sarcoma subtypes, LP-WGS has not been evaluated for applicability to the broader population of patients who have a sarcoma.
Does an LP-WGS liquid biopsy evaluating for CNAs detect ctDNA in plasma samples from patients who have sarcomas representing a variety of histologic subtypes?
This was a retrospective study conducted at a community-based, tertiary referral center. Nine paired (plasma and formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded [FFPE] tissue) and four unpaired (plasma) specimens from patients who had a sarcoma were obtained from a commercial biospecimen bank. Three control specimens from individuals who did not have cancer were also obtained. The paired and unpaired specimens from patients who had a sarcoma represented a variety of sarcoma histologic subtypes. cfDNA was extracted, amplified, and quantified. Libraries were prepared, and LP-WGS was performed using a NextSeq 500 next-generation sequencing machine at a low depth of sequencing coverage (∼1×). The ichorCNA bioinformatics algorithm, which was designed to detect CNAs from low-depth genomic sequencing data, was used to analyze the data. In contrast with the gold standard for diagnosis in the form of histopathologic analysis of a tissue sample, this test does not discriminate between sarcoma subtypes but detects the presence of tumor-derived CNAs within the ctDNA in the blood that should not be present in a patient who does not have cancer. The liquid biopsy was positive for the detection of cancer if the ichorCNA algorithm detected the presence of ctDNA. The algorithm was also used to quantitatively estimate the percent ctDNA within the cfDNA. The concentration of ctDNA was then calculated from the percent ctDNA relative to the total concentration of cfDNA. The CNAs of the paired FFPE tissue and plasma samples were graphically visualized using aCNViewer software.
This LP-WGS liquid biopsy detected ctDNA in 9 of 13 of the plasma specimens from patients with a sarcoma. The other four samples from patients with a sarcoma and all serum specimens from patients without cancer had no detectable ctDNA. Of those 9 patients with positive liquid biopsy results, the percent ctDNA ranged from 6% to 11%, and calculated ctDNA quantities were 0.04 to 5.6 ng/mL, which are levels to be expected when ctDNA is detectable.
In this small pilot study, we were able to detect sarcoma ctDNA with an LP-WGS liquid biopsy searching for CNAs in the plasma of most patients who had a sarcoma representing a variety of histologic subtypes.
These results suggest that an LP-WGS liquid biopsy evaluating for CNAs to identify ctDNA may be more broadly applicable to the population of patients who have a sarcoma than previously reported in studies focusing on specific subtypes. Large prospective clinical trials that gather samples at multiple time points during the process of diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance will be needed to further assess whether this technique can be clinically useful. At our institution, we are in the process of developing a large prospective clinical trial for this purpose.
Anderson CJ
,Yang H
,Parsons J
,Ahrens WA
,Jagosky MH
,Hsu JH
,Patt JC
,Kneisl JS
,Steuerwald NM
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