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Updated: May 31, 2026

In Vivo Functional Study of Disease-associated Rare Human Variants Using Drosophila
Published on: August 20, 2019
De novo nonsense mutations in ASXL1 cause Bohring-Opitz syndrome
Alexander Hoischen1, Bregje W M van Bon, Benjamín Rodríguez-Santiago
1Department of Human Genetics, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Bohring-Opitz syndrome is characterized by severe intellectual disability, distinctive facial features and multiple congenital malformations. We sequenced the exomes of three individuals with Bohring-Opitz syndrome and in each identified heterozygous de novo nonsense mutations in ASXL1, which is required for maintenance of both activation and silencing of Hox genes. In total, 7 out of 13 subjects with a Bohring-Opitz phenotype had de novo ASXL1 mutations, suggesting that the syndrome is genetically heterogeneous.
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