Exome-Based Case-Control Analysis Highlights the Pathogenic Role of Ciliary Genes in Transposition of the Great Arteries

Rationale: Transposition of the great arteries (TGA) is one of the most severe types of congenital heart diseases. Understanding the clinical characteristics and pathogenesis of TGA is, therefore, urgently needed for patient management of this severe disease. However, the clinical characteristics and genetic cause underlying TGA remain largely unexplored. Objective: We sought to systematically examine the clinical characteristics and genetic cause for isolated nonsyndromic TGA. Methods and Results: We recruited 249 patients with TGA (66 family trios) and performed whole-exome sequencing. The incidence of patent ductus arteriosus in dextro-TGA (52.7%) and dextrocardia/mesocardia in congenitally corrected TGA (32.8%) were significantly higher than that in other subtypes. A high prevalence of bicuspid pulmonic valve (9.6%) was observed in patients with TGA. Similar results were observed in a replication group of TGA (n=132). Through a series of bioinformatics filtering steps, we obtained 82 candidate genes harboring potentially damaging de novo, loss of function, compound heterozygous, or X-linked recessive variants. Established congenital heart disease-causing genes, such as FOXH1, were found among the list of candidate genes. A total of 19 ciliary genes harboring rare potentially damaging variants were also found; for example, DYNC2LI1 with a de novo putatively damaging variant. The enrichment of ciliary genes supports the roles of cilia in the pathogenesis of TGA. In total, 33% of the TGA probands had >1 candidate gene hit by putatively deleterious variants, suggesting that a portion of the TGA cases were probably affected by oligogenic or polygenic inheritance. Conclusions: The findings of clinical characteristic analyses have important implications for TGA patient stratification. The results of genetic analyses highlight the pathogenic role of ciliary genes and a complex genetic architecture underlying TGA.