De novo mutation in RING1 with epigenetic effects on neurodevelopment

RING1 is an E3-ubiquitin ligase that is involved in epigenetic control of transcription during development. It is a component of the polycomb repressive complex 1, and its role in that complex is to ubiquitylate histone H2A. In a 13-year-old girl with syndromic neurodevelopmental disabilities, we identified a de novo mutation, RING1 p.R95Q, which alters a conserved arginine residue in the catalytic RING domain. In vitro assays demonstrated that the mutant RING1 retains capacity to catalyze ubiquitin chain formation, but is defective in its ability to ubiquitylate histone H2A in nucleosomes. Consistent with this in vitro effect, cells of the patient showed decreased monoubiquitylation of histone H2A. We modeled the mutant RING1 in Caenorhabditis elegans by editing the comparable amino acid change into spat-3, the suggested RING1 ortholog. Animals with either the missense mutation or complete knockout of spat-3 were defective in monoubiquitylation of histone H2A and had defects in neuronal migration and axon guidance. Relevant to our patient, animals heterozygous for either the missense or knockout allele also showed neuronal defects. Our results support three conclusions: mutation of RING1 is the likely cause of a human neurodevelopmental syndrome, mutation of RING1 can disrupt histone H2A ubiquitylation without disrupting RING1 catalytic activity, and the comparable mutation in C. elegans spat-3 both recapitulates the effects on histone H2A ubiquitylation and leads to neurodevelopmental abnormalities. This role for RING1 adds to our understanding of the importance of aberrant epigenetic effects as causes of human neurodevelopmental disorders.