Browsing by Author "Farruggia, Piero"

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    AluY-mediated germline deletion, duplication and somatic stem cell reversion in UBE2T defines a new subtype of Fanconi anemia
    (Oxford University Press, 2015-09-15) Virts, Elizabeth L.; Jankowska, Anna; Mackay, Craig; Glaas, Marcel F.; Wiek, Constanze; Kelich, Stephanie L.; Lottmann, Nadine; Kennedy, Felicia M.; Marchal, Christophe; Lehnert, Erik; Scharf, Rüdiger E.; Dufour, Carlo; Lanciotti, Marina; Farruggia, Piero; Santoro, Alessandra; Savasan, Süreyya; Scheckenbach, Kathrin; Schipper, Jörg; Wagenmann, Martin; Lewis, Todd; Leffak, Michael; Farlow, Janice L.; Foroud, Tatiana M.; Honisch, Ellen; Niederacher, Dieter; Chakraborty, Sujata C.; Vance, Gail H.; Pruss, Dmitry; Timms, Kirsten M.; Lanchbury, Jerry S.; Alpi, Arno F.; Hanenberg, Helmut; Department of Pediatrics, IU School of Medicine
    Fanconi anemia (FA) is a rare inherited disorder clinically characterized by congenital malformations, progressive bone marrow failure and cancer susceptibility. At the cellular level, FA is associated with hypersensitivity to DNA-crosslinking genotoxins. Eight of 17 known FA genes assemble the FA E3 ligase complex, which catalyzes monoubiquitination of FANCD2 and is essential for replicative DNA crosslink repair. Here, we identify the first FA patient with biallelic germline mutations in the ubiquitin E2 conjugase UBE2T. Both mutations were aluY-mediated: a paternal deletion and maternal duplication of exons 2–6. These loss-of-function mutations in UBE2T induced a cellular phenotype similar to biallelic defects in early FA genes with the absence of FANCD2 monoubiquitination. The maternal duplication produced a mutant mRNA that could encode a functional protein but was degraded by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay. In the patient's hematopoietic stem cells, the maternal allele with the duplication of exons 2–6 spontaneously reverted to a wild-type allele by monoallelic recombination at the duplicated aluY repeat, thereby preventing bone marrow failure. Analysis of germline DNA of 814 normal individuals and 850 breast cancer patients for deletion or duplication of UBE2T exons 2–6 identified the deletion in only two controls, suggesting aluY-mediated recombinations within the UBE2T locus are rare and not associated with an increased breast cancer risk. Finally, a loss-of-function germline mutation in UBE2T was detected in a high-risk breast cancer patient with wild-type BRCA1/2. Cumulatively, we identified UBE2T as a bona fide FA gene (FANCT) that also may be a rare cancer susceptibility gene.
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    Molecular analysis of Fanconi anemia: the experience of the Bone Marrow Failure Study Group of the Italian Association of Pediatric Onco-Hematology
    (Ferrata Storti Foundation, 2014-06) De Rocco, Daniela; Bottega, Roberta; Cappelli, Enrico; Cavani, Simona; Criscuolo, Maria; Nicchia, Elena; Corsolini, Fabio; Greco, Chiara; Borriello, Adriana; Svahn, Johanna; Pillon, Marta; Mecucci, Cristina; Casazza, Gabriella; Verzegnassi, Federico; Cugno, Chiara; Locasciulli, Anna; Farruggia, Piero; Longoni, Daniela; Ramenghi, Ugo; Barberi, Walter; Tucci, Fabio; Perrotta, Silverio; Grammatico, Paola; Hanenberg, Helmut; Ragione, Fulvio Della; Dufour, Carlo; Savoia, Anna; Department of Pediatrics, IU School of Medicine
    Fanconi anemia is an inherited disease characterized by congenital malformations, pancytopenia, cancer predisposition, and sensitivity to cross-linking agents. The molecular diagnosis of Fanconi anemia is relatively complex for several aspects including genetic heterogeneity with mutations in at least 16 different genes. In this paper, we report the mutations identified in 100 unrelated probands enrolled into the National Network of the Italian Association of Pediatric Hematoly and Oncology. In approximately half of these cases, mutational screening was carried out after retroviral complementation analyses or protein analysis. In the other half, the analysis was performed on the most frequently mutated genes or using a next generation sequencing approach. We identified 108 distinct variants of the FANCA, FANCG, FANCC, FANCD2, and FANCB genes in 85, 9, 3, 2, and 1 families, respectively. Despite the relatively high number of private mutations, 45 of which are novel Fanconi anemia alleles, 26% of the FANCA alleles are due to 5 distinct mutations. Most of the mutations are large genomic deletions and nonsense or frameshift mutations, although we identified a series of missense mutations, whose pathogenetic role was not always certain. The molecular diagnosis of Fanconi anemia is still a tiered procedure that requires identifying candidate genes to avoid useless sequencing. Introduction of next generation sequencing strategies will greatly improve the diagnostic process, allowing a rapid analysis of all the genes.