Interpretation. There is huge promise in discovering the genetic basis of neurodevelopmental disorders using exome sequencing, but it is often not clear how ambiguous results are communicated to families. In a recent publication in Clinical Genetics, the authors try to understand what happens to exome results as they land on the clinician’s desk – and leave us with the conclusion that diagnostic exome sequencing when reviewed in a clinical setting may have a false positive rate of up to 20% with 5% of false negatives. Continue reading
Tag Archives: diagnostic exome analysis
Typical versus atypical: exome sequencing in pediatric epilepsies
Exome mining. Trio exome sequencing is both easy and difficult at the same time. If you manage to identify a plausible de novo mutation, the job is pretty much done. However, if no plausible de novo is found, things can become complex very quickly. Some of the known genes for recessive disorders are quite variable and therefore difficult to interpret. Also, we know little about the overall spectrum of the recessive disorders and the plausibility of atypical cases. A recent paper in Clinical Genetics takes a comprehensive approach to the genetic basis of pediatric epilepsies by exome sequencing. The authors include the analysis of recessive and compound heterozygous variants, and they follow up on some of the biomarkers that establish the diagnosis. There are some surprising findings. Continue reading
Publications of the week – DOCK7, DEPDC5 and the yield of diagnostic gene panels
This week in epilepsy genetics. The following publications are a selection of what was published in the last week. These studies might be relevant for you because they both extend the phenotype of recent gene findings and describe novel genes that you should be aware of. Continue reading