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Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is a genetic disorder characterized by ciliary structural abnormalities and dysfunction, leading to chronic rhinosinusitis, otitis media with effusion, bronchiectasis, and infertility. Approximately half of Japanese PCD cases are attributed to variants in the dynein regulatory complex subunit 1 (DRC1) gene, predominantly featuring homogeneous deletions of exons 1-4 spanning 27,748 base pairs on chromosome 2. Here, we report 10 new PCD cases (9 families) in addition to 29 previously reported cases (24 families) caused by DRC1 variants. Among these 39 cases, biallelic DRC1 exon 1-4 deletions were detected in 38 (97.4%). These DRC1 deletions exhibited an identical breakpoint in all PCD cases in the Japanese and Korean populations, strongly suggesting a founder effect. In this study, we performed haplotype analysis, using a whole-exome sequencing dataset of 18 Japanese PCD patients harboring large biallelic DRC1 deletions. We estimated that the founder allele likely emerged 115.1 generations ago (95% confidence interval: 33.7-205.1), suggesting an origin of approximately 3050 years ago, coinciding with the transition from the Jomon period to the early Yayoi period in Japan. Considering the formation of the modern Japanese population, the founder with the DRC1 exon 1-4 deletion likely lived on the Korean peninsula, with the allele later transmitted to Japan through migration. This study provides insights into the origin of the DRC1 copy number variant, the most frequent PCD variant in the Japanese and Korean populations, highlighting the importance of understanding population-specific genetic variations in the context of human migration and disease prevalence., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to The Japan Society of Human Genetics.)

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is a hereditary disease caused by pathogenic variants in genes associated with motile cilia. Some variants responsible for PCD are reported to be ethnic-specific or geographical-specific. To identify the responsible PCD variants of Japanese PCD patients, we performed next-generation sequencing of a panel of 32 PCD genes or whole-exome sequencing in 26 newly identified Japanese PCD families. We then combined their genetic data with those from 40 Japanese PCD families reported previously, for an overall analysis of 66 unrelated Japanese PCD families. We conducted Genome Aggregation Database and TogoVar database analyses to reveal the PCD genetic spectrum of the Japanese population and compare with other ethnic groups worldwide. We identified 22 unreported variants among the 31 patients in the 26 newly identified PCD families, including 17 deleterious variants estimated to cause lack of transcription or nonsense-mediated mRNA decay and 5 missense mutations. In all 76 PCD patients from the 66 Japanese families, we identified 53 variants on 141 alleles in total. Copy number variation in DRC1 is the most frequent variant in Japanese PCD patients, followed by DNAH5 c.9018C>T. We found 30 variants specific to the Japanese population, of which 22 are novel. Furthermore, 11 responsible variants in the Japanese PCD patients are common in East Asian populations, while some variants are more frequent in other ethnic groups. In conclusion, PCD is genetically heterogeneous between different ethnicities, and Japanese PCD patients have a characteristic genetic spectrum., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to The Japan Society of Human Genetics.)

Meckel-Gruber syndrome (MKS) is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous ciliopathy characterized by a triad of occipital encephalocele, polycystic kidneys, and postaxial polydactyly. Pathogenesis of MKS is related to dysfunction of primary cilia. However, reports on MKS caused by Tectonic2 (TCTN2) mutations are scanty whilst. There is no direct evidence of ciliogenesis in such MKS patients. Here, we identified two novel nonsense variants of TCTN2 (c.343G > T, p.E115*; c.1540C > T, p.Q514*) in a Chinese MKS fetus. Compared to reported TCTN2-causing MKS patients, our case represented an endocardial pad defect, which was not reported previously. We also found primary cilia protruded normally from the surface of epithelial cells in the affected fetal kidney tubules compared to controls, indicating TCTN2 is not necessary for ciliogenesis in the kidney. To our knowledge, this is the first case of MKS fetus caused by TCTN2 mutations from China.

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by recurrent respiratory infections, nasosinusitis, tympanitis, and/or male infertility, all of which can severely impair the patient's quality of life. Multiple morphological abnormalities of the sperm flagella (MMAF) is one type of severe teratozoospermia and results from a variety of flagellar defects. In this study, we conducted whole-exome sequencing to identify and evaluate the genetic lesions in two patients with potential PCD and MMAF. Biallelic mutations in exon 10, c.983G>A; p.(Gly328Asp), and exon 29, c.3532G>A; p.(Asp1178Asn), of the CFAP74 (NM_001304360) gene were identified in patient 1 (P1), and biallelic mutations in exon 7, c.652C>T; p.(Arg218Trp), and exon 35, c. 4331G>C; p.(Ser1444Thr), of the same gene were identified in patient 2 (P2). Bioinformatic analysis suggested that these variants may be disease causing. Immunofluorescence confirmed that CFAP74 was absent in these patients' sperm samples. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) was carried out for P1, and his wife became pregnant after embryo transfer and gave birth to a healthy baby. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to identify the importance of CFAP74 in potential PCD and MMAF, contributing to the genetic diagnosis of these disorders and helping to predict pregnancy outcomes relevant in in vitro fertilization.

We identified a novel CCDC151 mutation, c.325G>T (p.E109X), in a patient with primary ciliary dyskinesia and situs inversus. This stopgain mutation was predicted to be disease causing by bioinformatics program (MutationTaster) and was also not presented in the current Genome Aggregation Database (gnomAD), Exome Aggregation Consortium (ExAC), Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Database (dbSNP), or National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and Exome Sequencing Project (ESP). In addition, to the best of our knowledge, the present study was the first to report a CCDC151 mutation in primary ciliary dyskinesia patients with situs inversus in mainland China. In conclusion, our finding expands the spectrum of CCDC151 mutations, and more importantly our study provides additional support that CCDC151 plays important roles in left-right patterning and ciliary function.

Ciliopathies-are widely recognized and associated with a wide variety of developmental and degenerative disorders. Most cilia-related diseases have renal manifestation, and there is a cross- overlapping relationship between gene mutations and cilia disease. Here, we investigated the clinical and pathological manifestation of a rare disease patient. We present the case of a 15-year-old child with dysplasia and multiple-organ damage who was initially diagnosed with nephrotic syndrome. The patient's kidney disease progressed to renal failure and received hemodialysis 10 months after renal biopsy. The individual presented primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) and additional symptoms including sensorineural deafness, kidney dysplasia, severe kidney function loss, and congenital heart disease which potentially linked to primary cilia deficiency. Cilia immunofluorescence of renal tissue showed a decrease in the number of cilium of the patient compared to the normal kidney. We identified a site mutation in CCDC114 (NM_144577 exon7 c. 596Cå T p. Ala199Val) by whole-exon sequences. We found that CCDC114 located at the basal body at cilia and the knockdown of CCDC114 could affect the occurrence of cilia in hRPE1 cells. The previous study of CCDC114 mainly lies in the motile cilia, and this study found that its impact on primary cilia thus broadened the understanding of overlapping function of different types of cilia.