文摘
Tubulins, and microtubule polymers into which they incorporate, play critical mechanical roles in neuronal function during cell proliferation, neuronal migration, and postmigrational development: the three major overlapping events of mammalian cerebral cortex development. A number of neuronally expressed tubulin genes are associated with a spectrum of disorders affecting cerebral cortex formation. Such 鈥渢ubulinopathies鈥?include lissencephaly/pachygyria, polymicrogyria-like malformations, and simplified gyral patterns, in addition to characteristic extracortical features, such as corpus callosal, basal ganglia, and cerebellar abnormalities. Epilepsy is a common finding in these related disorders. Here we describe two unrelated individuals with infantile-onset epilepsy and abnormalities of brain morphology, harboring de novo variants that affect adjacent amino acids in a beta-tubulin gene m>TUBB2Am>. Located in a highly conserved loop, we demonstrate impaired tubulin and microtubule function resulting from each variant in聽vitro and by using in聽silico predictive modeling. We propose that the affected functional loop directly associates with the alpha-tubulin-bound guanosine triphosphate (GTP) molecule, impairing the intradimer interface and correct formation of the alpha/beta-tubulin heterodimer. This study associates mutations in m>TUBB2Am> with the spectrum of 鈥渢ubulinopathy鈥?phenotypes. As a consequence, genetic variations affecting all beta-tubulin genes expressed at high levels in the brain (m>TUBB2Bm>, m>TUBB3m>, m>TUBBm>, m>TUBB4Am>, and m>TUBB2Am>) have been linked with malformations of cortical development.
