Olga Kulikova, Andreas Brodehl, Anna Kiseleva, Roman Myasnikov, Alexey Meshkov, Caroline Stanasiuk, Anna Gärtner-Rommel, Mikhail Divashuk, Evgeniia Sotnikova, Sergey Koretskiy, Maria Kharlap, Viktoria Kozlova, Elena Mershina, Polina Pilus, Valentin Sinitsyn, Hendrik Milting, Sergey Boytsov, Oxana Drapkina
- Here, we present a small Russian family, where the index patient received a diagnosis of left-ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy (LVNC) in combination with a skeletal myopathy. Clinical follow-up analysis revealed a LVNC phenotype also in her son. Therefore, we applied a broad next-generation sequencing gene panel approach for the identification of the underlying mutation. Interestingly, \(\it DES\)-p.A337P was identified in the genomes of both patients, whereas only the index patient carried \(\it DSP\)-p.L1348X. \(\it DES\) encodes the muscle-specific intermediate filament protein desmin and \(\it DSP\) encodes desmoplakin, which is a cytolinker protein connecting desmosomes with the intermediate filaments. Because the majority of \(\it DES\) mutations cause severe filament assembly defects and because this mutation was found in both affected patients, we analyzed this \(\it DES\) mutation in vitro by cell transfection experiments in combination with confocal microscopy. Of note, desmin-p.A337P forms cytoplasmic aggregates in transfected SW-13 cells and in cardiomyocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem cells underlining its pathogenicity. In conclusion, we suggest including the \(\it DES\) gene in the genetic analysis for LVNC patients in the future, especially if clinical involvement of the skeletal muscle is present.
