Mutational spectrum and clinical features of patients with ACTG1 mutations identified by massively parallel DNA sequencing

Abstract

Objectives: ACTG1 has been reported to be a causative gene for autosomal dominant sensorineural hearing loss, DFNA20/26. In this study we sought to clarify the detailed mutational spectrum, clinical features, and genotype-phenotype correlations.

Methods: Massively parallel DNA sequencing (MPS) of 63 target candidate genes was used to screen 1120 Japanese hearing loss patients.

Results: MPS screening successfully identified 4 ACTG1 mutations in 5 families. The majority of patients showed high frequency-involved progressive hearing loss, with the age of onset mostly in the first or second decade. One patient received electric acoustic stimulation (EAS), which showed a good outcome.

Conclusions: Target exon-sequencing using MPS was proven to be a powerful new clinical diagnostic tool for the identification of rare causative genes such as ACTG1. The present clinical findings not only confirmed those previous reports but also provided important new clinical information.

Keywords: ACTG1; DFNA20/26; EAS; hearing loss; massively parallel DNA sequencing; next generation sequencing.