Variants of human CLDN9 cause mild to profound hearing loss.

Fiche publication

Date publication

juillet 2021

Journal

Human mutation

Auteurs

Membres identifiés du Cancéropôle Est :
Pr PHILIPPE Christophe , Dr NAMBOT Sophie

Tous les auteurs :
Ramzan M, Philippe C, Belyantseva IA, Nakano Y, Fenollar-Ferrer C, Tona R, Yousaf R, Basheer R, Imtiaz A, Faridi R, Munir Z, Idrees H, Salman M, Nambot S, Vitobello A, Kartti S, Zarrik O, Dane Witmer P, Sobreria N, Ibrahimi A, Banfi B, Moutton S, Friedman TB, Naz S

Lien Pubmed

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34265170

Résumé

Hereditary deafness is clinically and genetically heterogeneous. We investigated deafness segregating as a recessive trait in two families. Audiological examinations revealed an asymmetric mild to profound hearing loss with childhood or adolescent onset. Exome sequencing of probands identified a homozygous c.475G>A;p.(Glu159Lys) variant of CLDN9 (NM_020982.4) in one family and a homozygous c.370_372dupATC;p.(Ile124dup) CLDN9 variant in an affected individual of a second family. Claudin 9 (CLDN9) is an integral membrane protein and constituent of epithelial bicellular tight junctions that form semi-permeable, paracellular barriers between inner ear perilymphatic and endolymphatic compartments. Computational structural modeling predicts that substitution of a lysine for glutamic acid p.(Glu159Lys) alters one of two cis-interactions between CLDN9 protomers. The p.(Ile124dup) variant is predicted to locally misfold CLDN9 and mCherry tagged p.(Ile124dup) CLDN9 is not targeted to the HeLa cell membrane. In situ hybridization shows that mouse Cldn9 expression increases from embryonic to postnatal development and persists in adult inner ears coinciding with prominent CLDN9 immunoreactivity in tight junctions of epithelia outlining the scala media. Together with the Cldn9 deaf mouse and a homozygous frameshift of CLDN9 previously associated with deafness, the two bi-allelic variants of CLDN9 described here point to CLDN9 as a bona fide human deafness gene. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.