Clinical and molecular characterization of an emerging chromosome 22q13.31 microdeletion syndrome

Microdeletion of chromosome 22q13.31 is a very rare condition. Fourteen patients have been annotated in public databases but, to date, a clinical comparison has not been done and, consequently, a specific phenotype has not been delineated yet. We describe a patient showing neurodevelopmental disorders, dysmorphic features, and multiple congenital anomalies in which SNP array analysis revealed an interstitial 3.15 Mb de novo microdeletion in the 22q13.31 region encompassing 21 RefSeq genes and seven non-coding microRNAs. To perform an accurate phenotype characterization, clinical features observed in previously reported cases of 22q13.31 microdeletions were reviewed and compared to those observed in our patient. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a comparison between patients carrying overlapping 22q13.31 deletions has been done. This comparison allowed us to identify a distinct spectrum of clinical manifestations suggesting that patients with a de novo interstitial microdeletion involving 22q13.31 have an emerging syndrome characterized by developmental delay/intellectual disability, speech delay/language disorders, behavioral problems, hypotonia, urogenital, and hands/feet anomalies. The microdeletion identified in our patient is the smallest reported so far and, for this reason, useful to perform a detailed genotype-phenotype correlation. In particular, we propose the CELSR1, ATXN10, FBLN1, and UPK3A as candidate genes in the onset of the main clinical features of this contiguous gene syndrome. Thus, the patient reported here broadens our knowledge of the phenotypic consequences of 22q13.31 microdeletions facilitating genotype-phenotype correlations. Additional cases are needed to corroborate our hypothesis and confirm genotype-phenotype correlations of this emerging syndrome.