Identification of novel variants and expansion of the phenotypic spectrum in PATL2, WEE2, and TUBB8 associated with human early embryonic arrest.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to identify the genetic variants associated with early embryonic developmental arrest (EDA) in infertile patients and to expand the genotypic and phenotypic spectrum of maternal-effect genes, including PATL2, WEE2, and TUBB8, which are critical for oocyte maturation arrest (OMA) and fertilization failure (FF) as previously reported.

METHODS

Whole-exome sequencing was performed on 84 unrelated patients who experienced multiple in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer failures due to EDA. The effects of the variants in arrested embryos were assessed by morphological observations. Variants in PATL2, WEE2, and TUBB8 were confirmed by Sanger sequencing, followed by bioinformatic analysis, structural modeling of proteins, and functional assays.

RESULTS

We identified seven variants in five patients, including five novel variants (PATL2: c.802G>C; WEE2: c.487T>A, c.1165_1168delAAAC; TUBB8: c.604A>T, c.848C>A) and two previously reported variants (PATL2: c.805C>A; TUBB8: c.322G>A). The variants were predicted to be deleterious, affecting amino acid residues that are highly conserved across species. In vitro experiments confirmed that the PATL2 missense mutation (p.Gln269Lys) resulted in elevated mRNA levels compared to the wild type in HEK293T cells, while the WEE2 variant (p.Tyr163Asn) showed a 20.97% reduction in enzymatic activity. The patients displayed a wide range of infertility phenotypes, including OMA, FF, cleavage failure, and EDA. A literature-based analysis further highlighted the broad and variable phenotype spectrum associated with variants in these genes, enhancing our understanding of genotype-phenotype correlations.

CONCLUSIONS

This study highlights the diverse phenotypic outcomes associated with variants in PATL2, WEE2, and TUBB8. The findings provide a clearer picture of the genetic and phenotypic spectrums in patients, contributing to the advancement of molecular diagnostics in infertility.