Journal Article

Factors influencing success of clinical genome sequencing across a broad spectrum of disorders

Howard, Malcolm, Davenport, Emma E, Humphray, Sean, Bignell, Patricia, Powrie, Fiona, Taylor, John, Uhlig, Holm H, Russo, Alexandra, Percy, Melanie, Goriely, Anne, Greger, Ingo H, Johnson, David, Allan, Chris, Robbins, Peter A, Murray, Lisa, Hatton, Edouard, Blair, Edward, Craft, Jude, Copley, Richard R, Knight, Julian C, Nesbit, M Andrew, Donnelly, Peter, Lonie, Lorne, Cazier, Jean-Baptiste, Popitsch, Niko, Trebes, Amy, Bentley, David, Grocock, Russell, Broxholme, John, Becq, Jennifer, Silverman, Earl, Bento, Celeste, Martin, Hilary C, Cais, Ondrej, McMullin, Mary Frances, Lise, Stefano, Rimmer, Andy, Sørensen, Per Soelberg, Piret, Sian E, Thakker, Rajesh V, Kini, Usha, Simmons, Alison, Flint, Jonathan, Tomlinson, Ian, Hastings, Robert, Miller, Kerry A, Fenwick, Aimée L, Aricescu, A Radu, Bull, Katherine, Németh, Andrea H, Wright, Ben, Kanapin, Alexander, Fugger, Lars, Vyse, Tim, Attar, Moustafa, Hill, Adrian, Humburg, Peter, Sweeney, Elizabeth, Watkins, Hugh, Langman, Craig, Pagnamenta, Alistair, Piazza, Paolo, Twigg, Stephen R F, Ratcliffe, Peter J, Quek, Lynn, Luck, Joshua, Taylor, Jenny C, Krohn, Jonathan, Wall, S

2015

Overview

Gilean McVean and colleagues report the results of a large-scale clinical genome sequencing project spanning a broad spectrum of disorders. They identify factors influencing successful genetic diagnosis and highlight the challenges of interpreting findings for genetically heterogeneous disorders. To assess factors influencing the success of whole-genome sequencing for mainstream clinical diagnosis, we sequenced 217 individuals from 156 independent cases or families across a broad spectrum of disorders in whom previous screening had identified no pathogenic variants. We quantified the number of candidate variants identified using different strategies for variant calling, filtering, annotation and prioritization. We found that jointly calling variants across samples, filtering against both local and external databases, deploying multiple annotation tools and using familial transmission above biological plausibility contributed to accuracy. Overall, we identified disease-causing variants in 21% of cases, with the proportion increasing to 34% (23/68) for mendelian disorders and 57% (8/14) in family trios. We also discovered 32 potentially clinically actionable variants in 18 genes unrelated to the referral disorder, although only 4 were ultimately considered reportable. Our results demonstrate the value of genome sequencing for routine clinical diagnosis but also highlight many outstanding challenges.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group US,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 45/23 / 631/208/1516 / 631/208/514/1948 / 692/308/2056 / Agreements / Agriculture / Animal Genetics and Genomics / Annotations / Base Sequence / Biomedicine / Cancer Research / Data processing / Disease transmission / DNA Mutational Analysis / DNA sequencing / Families & family life / Gene Function / Genetic aspects / Genetic counseling / Genetic Diseases, Inborn - diagnosis / Genetic Diseases, Inborn - genetics / Genetic disorders / Genetic variation / Genome, Human / Genomes / Grants / Health aspects / High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing / Human Genetics / Humans / Identification and classification / Methods / Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / Molecular Sequence Annotation / Mutation / Nucleotide sequencing / Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Sensitivity and Specificity / Software / Studies / Success