Clinical and molecular cytogenetic findings of cat eye syndrome and a 2-year-old patient with congenital aural atresia and hearing loss

Abstract

Background: Cat eye syndrome (CES) is a rare congenital disease frequently caused by a partial tetrasomy of the proximal long (q) arm of chromosome 22, due to a small supernumerary marker chromosome (sSMC). CES patients show remarkable phenotypic variability. Despite the progress of molecular cytogenetic technology, the cause of phenotypic variability and the genotype-phenotype correlations remain unknown.

Methods: We analyzed clinical and genetic data of a new patient with CES together with 27 previously reported ones with a confirmed genomic gain in the PubMed database between 2012 and 2023.

Results: We reported a boy with CES carrying a 22q11.1-q11.21 duplication of 1.76 Mb tetrasomy (16888900_18644241, hg19) who presented currently rare or unreported clinical findings such as congenital aural atresia, hearing loss, PLSVC, and IVC. The results of the whole exome sequencing (WES) showed a heterozygous mutation of the GJB2 gene (NM_004004.6: exon2: c.109G > A). In addition, the results of our literature review showed that the presence of a classical sSMC was the most frequent cytogenetic abnormality in CES (82%). 63% of cases were in a homogenous state and 37% of cases were in a mosaic state. 72% of cases had a 1-2 Mb duplication. In the majority of CES patients the breakpoints in chromosome 22 are localized to a 50 kb region (18610000_18660000 bp). The CES critical region (CESCR) may be further delimited to a 0.3 Mb region (17799398_18111588 bp). Within this region CECR2, SLC25A18, ATP6V1E1, and BCL2L13 are strong candidate genes for causing the main CES phenotype. The ear anomalies are the most frequent features in CES patients (89%) and hearing loss was present in 36% of CES patients.

Conclusions: The phenotypic features in CES are highly variable. Our findings expand the symptom spectrum of CES and lay the foundation for better delineating the clinical phenotype, molecular cytogenetic features associated with CES and genotype-phenotype correlations. We recommend performing WES to rule out the involvement of other genetic factors in the patient's phenotype. In addition, our findings also highlight the need for genetic counseling and recurrence risk assessment.

Keywords: 22q11.1q11.21 duplication; Cat eye syndrome; Congenital aural atresia; Genetic counseling; Hearing loss; Small supernumerary marker chromosome (sSMC).

Fig. 1

Craniofacial features of the patient at the age of 2. Severe left ear malformation, bilateral preauricular pits and tags, fistula on the right cheek, and sinus in the left cheek

Fig. 2

The G-banded karyotype of a sSMC(22) (red arrow)

Fig. 3

Result of the SNP-array genotyping (GRCh37/hg19) and mapping of the genomic gain originating from chromosome 22. Chromosomal microarray showing tetrasomy region (denoted by arrow) -arr[GRCh37] 22q11.1q11.21(16888900_18644241) x4

Fig. 4

Overview of the genes in the duplication region of our patient. The region extends to position 18,644,241 according to UCSC Genome Browser on Human (GRCh37/hg19), corresponding to a CES-SMC type I, including 16 genes

Fig. 5

Diagram denoting the CESCR together with the location of the duplication region in the index patient. The blue blocks along with references under the map indicate the location of duplication in the index cases. The red block on the map represents the region of common breakpoints of CES. The red arrow indicates the DGS/VCFS region. The further defined CESCR is located between the red dotted lines