Building Bridges Between the Clinic and the Laboratory: A Meeting Review – Brain Malformations: A Roadmap for Future Research

In the middle of March 2019, a group of scientists and clinicians (as well as those who wear both hats) gathered in the green campus of the Weizmann Institute of Science to share recent scientific findings, to establish collaborations, and to discuss future directions for better diagnosis, etiology modeling and treatment of brain malformations. One hundred fifty scientists from twenty-two countries took part in this meeting. Thirty-eight talks were presented and as many as twenty-five posters were displayed. This review is aimed at presenting some of the highlights that the audience was exposed to during the three-day meeting

Increased LIS1 expression affects human and mouse brain development

10 pages, 7 figures.-- Supplementary information (Suppl. data, 17 pages, and suppl. movies S1-S2) available at: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/vaop/ncurrent/suppinfo/ng.302_S1.htmlDeletions of the PAFAH1B1 gene (encoding LIS1) in 17p13.3 result in isolated lissencephaly sequence, and extended deletions including the YWHAE gene (encoding 14-3-3) cause Miller-Dieker syndrome. We identified seven unrelated individuals with submicroscopic duplication in 17p13.3 involving the PAFAH1B1 and/or YWHAE genes, and using a 'reverse genomics' approach, characterized the clinical consequences of these duplications. Increased PAFAH1B1 dosage causes mild brain structural abnormalities, moderate to severe developmental delay and failure to thrive. Duplication of YWHAE and surrounding genes increases the risk for macrosomia, mild developmental delay and pervasive developmental disorder, and results in shared facial dysmorphologies. Transgenic mice conditionally overexpressing LIS1 in the developing brain showed a decrease in brain size, an increase in apoptotic cells and a distorted cellular organization in the ventricular zone, including reduced cellular polarity but preserved cortical cell layer identity. Collectively, our results show that an increase in LIS1 expression in the developing brain results in brain abnormalities in mice and humans.The work was supported in part by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant no. 270/04 to O.R. and an equipment grant), the Foundation Jérôme Lejeune, the Minerva Foundation with funding from the Federal German Ministry for Education and Research, German-Israeli collaboration grant Gr-1905, March of Dimes grant 6-FY07-388, collaborative BSF grant 2007081 (to O.R. and J.R.L.), a grant from the Paul Godfrey Research Foundation in Children’s Diseases, the Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases, the Kekst Center, the Forcheimer Center, a Weizmann-Pasteur collaborative grant, a research grant from the Michigan Women of Wisdom Fund to support Weizmann Women scientists, support from Maurice Janin, the Jewish Communal Fund, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, the David and Fela Shapell Family Center research grant for Genetic Disorders Research, grants DIGESIC-MEC BFU2005-09085 and Ingenio 2010 MEC-CONSOLIDER CSD2007-00023 (to S.M.), support from EU grant LSHG-CT-2004-512003, the Baylor Medical Genetics Laboratories, the Mental Retardation Developmental Disabilities Research Center (HD024064) and a Program Project grant (P01 HD39420) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (to J.R.L.).Peer reviewe