ARHGEF9 mutations in epileptic encephalopathy/intellectual disability: toward understanding the mechanism underlying phenotypic variation

ARHGEF9 resides on Xq11.1 and encodes collybistin, which is crucial in gephyrin clustering and GABA(A) receptor localization. ARHGEF9 mutations have been identified in patients with heterogeneous phenotypes, including epilepsy of variable severity and intellectual disability. However, the mechanism underlying phenotype variation is unknown. Using next-generation sequencing, we identified a novel mutation, c.868C > T/p.R290C, which co-segregated with epileptic encephalopathy, and validated its association with epileptic encephalopathy. Further analysis revealed that all ARHGEF9 mutations were associated with intellectual disability, suggesting its critical role in psychomotor development. Three missense mutations in the PH domain were not associated with epilepsy, suggesting that the co-occurrence of epilepsy depends on the affected functional domains. Missense mutations with severe molecular alteration in the DH domain, or located in the DH-gephyrin binding region, or adjacent to the SH3-NL2 binding site were associated with severe epilepsy, implying that the clinical severity was potentially determined by alteration of molecular structure and location of mutations. Male patients with ARHGEF9 mutations presented more severe phenotypes than female patients, which suggests a gene-dose effect and supports the pathogenic role of ARHGEF9 mutations. This study highlights the role of molecular alteration in phenotype expression and facilitates evaluation of the pathogenicity of ARHGEF9 mutations in clinical practice.