Sánchez Iglesias, SofíaRuibal, ÁlvaroRodríguez Requena, JesúsAraujo-Vilar, DavidGuillén-Navarro, EncarnaDomingo-Jiménez, RosarioVictoria Martínez, BertaRuiz Riquelme, Alejandro IvánRábano, AlbertoLoidi, LourdesBeiras-Iglesias, AndrésGonzález Méndez, BlancaRamos, AdrianaLópez González, VanesaBallesta Martinez, Maria JulianaGarrido Pumar, MiguelAguiar, Pablo2024-02-062024-02-062013Guillén-Navarro E, Sánchez-Iglesias S, Domingo-Jiménez R, et alA new seipin-associated neurodegenerative syndromeJournal of Medical Genetics 2013;50:401-409.0022-2593http://hdl.handle.net/10347/32442Background: Seipin/BSCL2 mutations can cause type 2 congenital generalised lipodystrophy (BSCL) or dominant motor neurone diseases. Type 2 BSCL is frequently associated with some degree of intellectual impairment, but not to fatal neurodegeneration. In order to unveil the aetiology and pathogenetic mechanisms of a new neurodegenerative syndrome associated with a novel BSCL2 mutation, six children, four of them showing the BSCL features, were studied. Methods: Mutational and splicing analyses of BSCL2 were performed. The brain of two of these children was examined postmortem. Relative expression of BSCL2 transcripts was analysed by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in different tissues of the index case and controls. Overexpressed mutated seipin in HeLa cells was analysed by immunofluorescence and western blotting. Results: Two patients carried a novel homozygous c.985C>T mutation, which appeared in the other four patients in compound heterozygosity. Splicing analysis showed that the c.985C>T mutation causes an aberrant splicing site leading to skipping of exon 7. Expression of exon 7-skipping transcripts was very high with respect to that of the non-skipped transcripts in all the analysed tissues of the index case. Neuropathological studies showed severe neurone loss, astrogliosis and intranuclear ubiquitin(+) aggregates in neurones from multiple cortical regions and in the caudate nucleus. Conclusions: Our results suggest that exon 7 skipping in the BSCL2 gene due to the c.985C>T mutation is responsible for a novel early onset, fatal neurodegenerative syndrome involving cerebral cortex and basal ganglia.engCC BY-NC 4.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Seipin/BSCL2 mutationsNeurodegenerative syndromejournal article10.1136/jmedgenet-2013-1015251468-6244open access