Double somatic mosaicism in Marfan syndrome

Abstract

Marfan syndrome (MFS) is a hereditary systemic connective tissue disorder with great clinical variability. It is caused by heterozygous pathogenic variants in the FBN1 gene. Cardinal manifestations involve the cardiovascular, ocular, and skeletal systems. Clinical diagnosis is based on the revised Ghent nosology. We present the case of a child with a Marfan systemic score of 9 whose genetic study revealed two pathogenic mosaic frameshift variants in the FBN1 gene. Mosaicism is very rare in patients diagnosed with MFS, and this is the first description of a patient with two pathogenic mosaic variants in the FBN1 gene. Both variants are present in cells derived from ectodermal (buccal swab) and mesodermal (leukocyte) tissues, suggesting a mutation prior to gastrulation. We propose a defective repair of the de novo variant in the complementary strand as the mechanism that led this individual to be a carrier of two different populations of mutant cells carrying adjacent variants.