ATP2B1 variants associated with generalized epilepsy without neurodevelopmental disorders and the underlying mechanism

Background

The ATP2B1 gene encodes the plasma membrane calcium-transporting ATPase 1 (PMCA1), which is predominantly expressed in the brain and plays an essential role in intracellular calcium homeostasis, potentially affecting neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission. Previous studies have identified ATP2B1 variants in patients with neurodevelopmental disorders. However, the significance of ATP2B1 variants in epilepsy remains unknown.

Methods

Trio-based whole-exome sequencing (WES) was performed in the cohorts of patients with epilepsy without acquired etiologies. To define the gene-disease association, we reviewed previously reported variants of ATP2B1 and analyzed the damaging effects of the variants, genotype-phenotype correlation, and spatial-temporal expression pattern.

Results

ATP2B1 variants were identified in five individuals affected by generalized epilepsy or genetic epilepsy with febrile seizures plus from two unrelated families. The identified ATP2B1 variants included one de novo heterozygous missense variant (c.2920A>G/p.Ile974Val) and one co-segregated heterozygous missense variant (c.76G>A/p.Asp26Asn). The de novo variant was absent in any public population database and was evaluated as likely pathogenic according to the criteria of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG). The co-segregated variant had an extremely low minor allele frequency (MAF = 7.955×10⁻⁶) in gnomAD. Computational modelling analysis suggested that the two variants led to impairment in protein stability. All of the patients had favourable outcomes without neurodevelopmental disorders. Further analysis revealed that neurodevelopmental disorders-associated variants were either biallelic variants or monoallelic truncation/missense variants, characterized by significant alterations in hydrogen bonding and/or hydrophobicity, along with extremely high AlphaMissense scores; while epilepsy-associated variants were missense variants with relatively little damage, resulting in no changes in hydrogen bonding or hydrophobicity. Notably, missense variants located in the functional domain with severe damaging effect were more likely to manifest as neurodevelopmental disorders comorbid with epilepsy. Additionally, ATP2B1 exhibits relatively low baseline expression at early development stages but significantly increases in later stages, with particularly high expression in the striatum, which is consistent with the generalized epilepsy phenotype observed in this study, and explains that severe damage variants were associated with early-onset neurodevelopmental disorders, whereas milder damage variants were associated with epilepsy.

Significance

ATP2B1 is a potential candidate gene for generalized epilepsy. Genetic dependent stage (GDS), gene tissue-specific expression and genotype-phenotype correlation contribute to the explanation of phenotypic heterogeneity.