Experiments in Drosophila contribute to study of human gene variants associated with an early onset epileptic encephalopathy

Suzuki H, Yoshida T, Morisada N, Uehara T, Kosaki K, Sato K, Matsubara K, Takano-Shimizu T, Takenouchi T. De novo NSF mutations cause early infantile epileptic encephalopathy. Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2019 Nov 1. doi: 10.1002/acn3.50917. PubMed PMID: 31675180.

Abstract: "N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF) plays a critical role in intracellular vesicle transport, which is essential for neurotransmitter release. Herein, we, for the first time, document human monogenic disease phenotype of de novo pathogenic variants in NSF, that is, epileptic encephalopathy of early infantile onset. When expressed in the developing eye of Drosophila, the mutant NSF severely affected eye development, while the wild-type allele had no detectable effect under the same conditions. Our findings suggest that the two pathogenic variants exert a dominant negative effect. De novo heterozygous mutations in the NSF gene cause early infantile epileptic encephalopathy."