Cleft Palate Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Cleft Palate, including details on causes, surgery, treatment.

Heterozygous nonsense mutation SATB2 associated with cleft palate, osteoporosis, and cognitive defects.

Leoyklang P, Suphapeetiporn K, Siriwan P, Desudchit T, Chaowanapanja P, Gahl WA, Shotelersuk V

Department of Pediatrics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.

Studies of human chromosomal aberrations and knockout (KO) mice have suggested SATB2 as a candidate gene for a human malformation syndrome of craniofacial patterning and brain development. Of 59 unrelated patients with craniofacial dysmorphism, with or without mental retardation, one 36-year-old man had a nonsynonymous mutation in SATB2. The affected individual exhibited craniofacial dysmorphisms including cleft palate, generalized osteoporosis, profound mental retardation, epilepsy and a jovial personality. He carries a de novo germline nonsense mutation (c.715C>T, p.R239X) in the exon 6 of SATB2. Expression studies showed that the mutant RNA was stable, expected to produce a truncated protein predicted to retain its dimerization domain and exert a dominant negative effect. This new syndrome is the first determined to result from mutation of a gene within the family that encodes nuclear matrix-attachment region (MAR) proteins.

Published 28 June 2007 in Hum Mutat, 28(7): 732-8.
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