Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0025362 (mental retardation)
 15,878 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The N syndrome is characterized by mental retardation, malformations, chromosome breakage, and development of T-cell leukemia (Opitz et al.: Proceedings of the II International Congress IASSMD pp 115-119, 1971; Hess et al.: Clinical Genetics 6:237-246, 1974b, American Journal of Medical Genetics [supplement] 3:383-388, 1987). N syndrome fibroblasts were studied to see if the high chromosome breakage rate associated with this apparently X-linked syndrome could be related to a deficiency of DNA polymerase alpha, a product of a gene localized to the X chromosome. Bleomycin, which is known to break double-stranded DNA, produced increased chromosome breakage in normal control, Fanconi anemia, and N syndrome fibroblasts. When aphidicolin was used to inhibit repair mediated by DNA polymerase alpha, both normal control and Fanconi anemia fibroblasts showed significantly more chromosome breakage than was produced by bleomycin alone, but there was no increase in the amount of breakage seen in the N syndrome fibroblasts over that seen with bleomycin alone. This suggests that the N syndrome is due to a mutation affecting the region of the X chromosome on which the gene for DNA polymerase alpha is located, and that the high risk of T-cell leukemia observed in the hemizygote is due to this DNA repair defect.
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PMID:DNA polymerase alpha defect in the N syndrome. 168 58

Complex chromosome rearrangements (CCRs) are currently defined as structural genome variations that involve more than 2 chromosome breaks and result in exchanges of chromosomal segments. They are thought to be extremely rare, but their detection rate is rising because of improvements in molecular cytogenetic technology. Their population frequency is also underestimated, since many CCRs may not elicit a phenotypic effect. CCRs may be the result of fork stalling and template switching, microhomology-mediated break-induced repair, breakage-fusion-bridge cycles, or chromothripsis. Patients with chromosomal instability syndromes show elevated rates of CCRs due to impaired DNA double-strand break responses during meiosis. Therefore, the putative functions of the proteins encoded by ATM, BLM, WRN, ATR, MRE11, NBS1, and RAD51 in preventing CCRs are discussed. CCRs may exert a pathogenic effect by either (1) gene dosage-dependent mechanisms, e.g. haploinsufficiency, (2) mechanisms based on disruption of the genomic architecture, such that genes, parts of genes or regulatory elements are truncated, fused or relocated and thus their interactions disturbed - these mechanisms will predominantly affect gene expression - or (3) mixed mutation mechanisms in which a CCR on one chromosome is combined with a different type of mutation on the other chromosome. Such inferred mechanisms of pathogenicity need corroboration by mRNA sequencing. Also, future studies with in vitro models, such as inducible pluripotent stem cells from patients with CCRs, and transgenic model organisms should substantiate current inferences regarding putative pathogenic effects of CCRs. The ramifications of the growing body of information on CCRs for clinical and experimental genetics and future treatment modalities are briefly illustrated with 2 cases, one of which suggests KDM4C (JMJD2C) as a novel candidate gene for mental retardation.
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PMID:Mechanisms of Origin, Phenotypic Effects and Diagnostic Implications of Complex Chromosome Rearrangements. 2673 13

The histone demethylase PHF8 has been implicated in multiple pathological disorders, including X-linked mental retardation and tumorigenesis. However, it is not clear how the abundance and function of PHF8 are regulated. Here, we report that PHF8 physically associates with the deubiquitinase USP7. Specifically, we demonstrated that USP7 promotes deubiquitination and stabilization of PHF8, leading to the upregulation of a group of genes, including cyclin A2, that are critical for cell growth and proliferation. The USP7-encoding gene was also transcriptionally regulated by PHF8, via positive feedback. USP7 was overexpressed in breast carcinomas, and the level of expression positively correlated with expression of PHF8 and cyclin A2 and with the histological grade of breast cancer. We showed that USP7 promotes breast carcinogenesis by stabilizing PHF8 and upregulating cyclin A2 and that the interaction between USP7 and PHF8 is augmented during DNA damage. Moreover, USP7-promoted PHF8 stabilization conferred cellular resistance to genotoxic insults and was required for the recruitment of BLM and KU70, which are both essential for DNA double-strand break repair. Our study mechanistically links USP7 to epigenetic regulation and DNA repair. Moreover, these data support the pursuit of USP7 and PHF8 as potential targets for breast cancer intervention, especially in combination with chemo- or radiotherapies.
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PMID:Stabilization of histone demethylase PHF8 by USP7 promotes breast carcinogenesis. 2718 83