Copy Number Variation and Epilepsy: State of the Art in the Era of High-Throughput Sequencing-A Multicenter Cohort Study

Abstract

Background: Genetic epilepsy diagnosis is increasing due to technological advancements. Although the use of molecular diagnosis is increasing, chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA) remains an important diagnostic tool for many patients. We aim to explore the role and indications of CMA in epilepsy, given the current genomic advances.

Methods: We obtained data from 378 epileptic described patients, who underwent CMA between 2015 and 2021. Different types of syndromic or nonsyndromic epilepsy were represented.

Results: After excluding patients who were undertreated or had missing data, we included 250 patients with treated epilepsy and relevant clinical information. These patients mostly had focal epilepsy or developmental and epileptic encephalopathy, with a median start age of 2 years. Ninety percent of the patients had intellectual disability, more than two thirds had normal head size, and 60% had an abnormal magnetic resonance imaging. We also included 10 patients with epilepsy without comorbidities. In our cohort, we identified 35 pathogenic copy number variations (CNVs) explaining epilepsy with nine recurrent CNVs enriched in patients with epilepsy, 12 CNVs related to neurodevelopmental disorder phenotype with possible epilepsy, five CNVs including a gene already known in epilepsy, and nine CNVs based on size combined with de novo occurrence. The diagnosis rate in our study reached 14% (35 of 250) with first-line CMA, as previously reported. Although targeted gene panel sequencing could potentially diagnose some of the reported epilepsy CNVs (34% [12 of 35]).

Conclusions: CMA remains a viable option as the first-line genetic test in cases where other genetic tests are not available and as a second-line diagnostic technique if gene panel or exome sequencing yields negative results.

Keywords: Chromosomal microarray; Copy number variations; Epilepsy; Neurodevelopmental disorder.