In silico analysis for determining the deleterious nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms of BRCA genes

Abstract

Recent advances in DNA sequencing techniques have led to an increase in the identification of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, but no further information regarding the deleterious probability of many of them is available (Variants of Unknown Significance/VUS). As a result, in the current study, different sequence- and structure-based computational tools including SIFT, PolyPhen2, PANTHER, SNPs&GO, FATHMM, SNAP, PhD-SNP, Align-GVGD, and I-Mutant were utilized for determining how resulted BRCA protein is affected by corresponding missense mutations. FoldX was used to estimate mutational effects on the structural stability of BRCA proteins. Variants were considered extremely deleterious only when all tools predicted them to be deleterious. A total of 10 VUSs in BRCA1 (Cys39Ser, Cys64Gly, Phe861Cys, Arg1699Pro, Trp1718Cys, Phe1761Ser, Gly1788Asp, Val1804Gly, Trp1837Gly, and Trp1837Cys) and 12 in BRCA2 (Leu2510Pro, Asp2611Gly, Tyr2660Asp, Leu2686Pro, Leu2688Pro, Tyr2726Cys, Leu2792Pro, Gly2812Glu, Gly2813Glu, Arg2842Cys, Asp3073Gly, and Gly3076Val) were considered as extremely deleterious. Results suggested that deleterious variants were mostly enriched in the N- and C-terminal domain of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 C-terminus. Utilizing evolutionary conservation analysis, we demonstrated that the majority of deleterious SNPs ensue in highly conserved regions of BRCA genes. Furthermore, utilizing FoldX, we demonstrated that alterations in the function of proteins are not always together with stability alterations.

Keywords: BRCA genes; SNPs; computational tools; evolutionary analysis.

Figure 1

Flow chart for computational analysis of SNPs in this study

Figure 2

Distribution of predicted nsSNPs in BRCA1 (A) and BRCA2 (B) genes.

Figure 3

The quality assessment of the model generated with modeller. A) Ramachandran plot analysis of modeled BRCA2 structure generated by PROCHECK B) Comparison of model (pink) and crystal structure of mouse BRCA2 (green)

Figure 4

VUSs are predicted to destabilize the tertiary structure of BRCA1 (A) and BRCA2 (B) and so, considered deleterious.