<i>DNAJC30</i> disease-causing gene variants in a large Central European cohort of patients with suspected Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy and optic atrophy.

Abstract

Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) has been considered a prototypical mitochondriopathy and a textbook example for maternal inheritance linked to certain disease-causing variants in the mitochondrial genome. Recently, an autosomal recessive form of LHON (arLHON) has been described, caused by disease-causing variants in the nuclear encoded gene <i>DNAJC30</i>. In this study, we screened the <i>DNAJC30</i> gene in a large Central European cohort of patients with a clinical diagnosis of LHON or other autosomal inherited optic atrophies (OA). We identified likely pathogenic variants in 35/1202 patients, corresponding to a detection rate of 2.9%. The previously described missense variant c.152A>G;p.(Tyr51Cys) accounts for 90% of disease-associated alleles in our cohort and we confirmed a strong founder effect. Furthermore, we identified two novel pathogenic variants in <i>DNAJC30</i>: the nonsense variant c.610G>T;p.(Glu204*) and the in-frame deletion c.230_232del;p.(His77del). Clinical investigation of the patients with arLHON revealed a younger age of onset, a more frequent bilateral onset and an increased clinically relevant recovery compared with LHON associated with disease-causing variants in the mitochondrial DNA. This study expands previous findings on arLHON and emphasises the importance of <i>DNAJC30</i> in the genetic diagnostics of LHON and OA in European patients.