Molecular Pathogenesis
Several genes and gene families including TWIST1, TCF12, ERF, FGFs, FGFRs, MSX2, ALX4, EFNB1, EFNA4, NELL1, RUNX2, BMPs, TGF-βs, SHH, IGFs, IGFRs, and IGFBPs regulate patency of the sutures of the calvarium, likely by interacting with one another. Clinically, Saethre-Chotzen syndrome (SCS) has phenotypic overlap with other craniosynostosis syndromes, particularly Muenke syndrome, caused by the p.Pro250Arg pathogenic variant in FGFR3 [Muenke et al 1997]. While the two genes lead clinically to the same primary malformation –premature fusion of the calvaria – it is not known if they lie in the same, parallel, or independent pathways during calvarial development.
Gene structure.
TWIST1 comprises two exons and one intron. The first exon contains an open reading frame encoding a 202-amino acid protein, followed by a 45-bp untranslated portion, a 536-bp intron, and a second untranslated exon (reference sequences NM_000474.3 and NP_000465.1).
Pathogenic variants. To date, more than 209 variants in TWIST1 have been reported to cause SCS, which results from functional haploinsufficiency of Twist-related protein 1, a basic helix-loop-helix (HLH) transcription factor. The majority of reported pathogenic variants are missense, nonsense, or frameshift (i.e., deletions/insertions/duplications/indels); however, a significant number of large deletion or chromosome rearrangements have also been reported [Gripp et al 2000, Cai et al 2003a, de Heer et al 2005, Kress et al 2006, Foo et al 2009, Roscioli et al 2013, Paumard-Hernández et al 2015, The Human Gene Mutation Database (registration required)]. All TWIST1 pathogenic variants cause functional haploinsufficiency.
All of the disease-associated variants are located within the coding region; no splice variants, intronic variants, or changes within the second exon have been reported. No apparent mutational "hot spot" has been identified.
Normal gene product. The Twist-related protein 1 is a member of a large family of basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcriptional regulators. The bHLH motif is identified by the following:
Abnormal gene product.
TWIST1 pathogenic variants lead to haploinsufficiency [El Ghouzzi et al 2000]. Haploinsufficiency of Twist-related protein 1 changes the ratio of dimers and, therefore, the expression of downstream signaling molecules.
These data suggest that protein degradation and altered subcellular localization account for the loss of functional Twist-related protein 1 from the abnormal allele in individuals with SCS. This model also supports the finding that the coronal sutures are predominantly fused in SCS, since these sutures have a higher level of gene expression of downstream activators, as shown in Twist-null/+ mice models [el Ghouzzi et al 1997, Bourgeois et al 1998, Carver et al 2002, Connerney et al 2008, Miraoui & Marie 2010].