Somatic mosaicism in the MAPK pathway in sporadic brain arteriovenous malformation and association with phenotype

Sporadic brain arteriovenous malformation (BAVM) is a tangled vascular lesion characterized by direct artery-to-vein connections that can cause life-threatening intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Recently, somatic mutations in KRAS have been reported in sporadic BAVM, and mutations in other mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway genes have been identified in other vascular malformations. The objectives of this study were to systematically evaluate somatic mutations in MAPK pathway genes in patients with sporadic BAVM lesions and to evaluate the association of somatic mutations with phenotypes of sporadic BAVM severity.

The authors performed whole-exome sequencing on paired lesion and blood DNA samples from 14 patients with sporadic BAVM, and 295 genes in the MAPK signaling pathway were evaluated to identify genes with somatic mutations in multiple patients with BAVM. Digital droplet polymerase chain reaction was used to validate KRAS G12V and G12D mutations and to assay an additional 56 BAVM samples.

The authors identified a total of 24 candidate BAVM-associated somatic variants in 11 MAPK pathway genes. The previously identified KRAS G12V and G12D mutations were the only recurrent mutations. Overall, somatic KRAS G12V was present in 14.5% of BAVM lesions and G12D was present in 31.9%. The authors did not detect a significant association between the presence or allelic burden of KRAS mutation and three BAVM phenotypes: lesion size (maximum diameter), age at diagnosis, and age at ICH.

The authors confirmed the high prevalence of somatic KRAS mutations in sporadic BAVM lesions and identified several candidate somatic variants in other MAPK pathway genes. These somatic variants may contribute to understanding of the etiology of sporadic BAVM and the clinical characteristics of patients with this condition.