A Mutation in the Rett Syndrome Gene,
MECP2, Causes X-Linked
Mental Retardation and Progressive Spasticity in Males
Abstract
Rett syndrome (RTT, MIM 312750) is a progressive neurodevelopmental disorder and one of the most common causes of mental retardation in females, with an incidence of 1 in 10,000-15,000 (ref. 2). Patients with classic RTT appear to develop normally until 6-18 months of age, then gradually lose speech and purposeful hand use, and develop microcephaly, seizures, autism, ataxia, intermittent hyperventilation and stereotypic hand movements. After initial regression, the condition stabilizes and patients usually survive into adulthood. As RTT occurs almost exclusively in females, it has been proposed that RTT is caused by an X-linked dominant mutation with lethality in hemizygous males. Previous exclusion mapping studies using RTT families mapped the locus to Xq28 (refs 6,9,10,11). Using a systematic gene screening approach, we have identified mutations in the gene (MECP2 ) encoding X-linked methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MeCP2) as the cause of some cases of RTT. MeCP2 selectively binds CpG dinucleotides in the mammalian genome and mediates transcriptional repression through interaction with histone deacetylase and the corepressor SIN3A (refs 12,13). In 5 of 21 sporadic patients, we found 3 de novo missense mutations in the region encoding the highly conserved methyl-binding domain (MBD) as well as a de novo frameshift and a de novo nonsense mutation, both of which disrupt the transcription repression domain (TRD). In two affected half-sisters of a RTT family, we found segregation of an additional missense mutation not detected in their obligate carrier mother. This suggests that the mother is a germline mosaic for this mutation. Our study reports the first disease-causing mutations in RTT and points to abnormal epigenetic regulation as the mechanism underlying the pathogenesis of RTT.
Erratum
This corrects the article "A Mutation in the Rett Syndrome Gene, MECP2, Causes X-Linked Mental Retardation and Progressive Spasticity in Males" on page 982.
In the October 2000 issue of the Journal, in the report “A Mutation in the Rett Syndrome Gene, MECP2, Causes X-Linked Mental Retardation and Progressive Spasticity in Males” by Meloni et al. (67:982–985), there was an error in the penultimate sentence of the second complete paragraph on page 983: in addition to the Murphy et al. (1994) reference, there also should be the citation “M. D'Esposito and F. Filippini, unpublished data.” The authors regret this omission.
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