Febrile seizures and generalized epilepsy associated with a mutation in the Na+-channel beta 1 subunit gene SCN1B

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Item Type:	Article
Title:	Febrile seizures and generalized epilepsy associated with a mutation in the Na+-channel beta 1 subunit gene SCN1B
Creators Name:	Wallace, R.H., Wang, D.W., Singh, R., Scheffer, I.E., George, A.L., Phillips, H.A., Saar, K., Reis, A., Johnson, E.W., Sutherland, G.R., Berkovic, S.F. and Mulley, J.C.
Abstract:	Febrile seizures affect approximately 3% of all children under six years of age and are by far the most common seizure disorder. A small proportion of children with febrile seizures later develop ongoing epilepsy with afebrile seizures. Segregation analysis suggests the majority of cases have complex inheritance but rare families show apparent autosomal dominant inheritance. Two putative loci have been mapped (FEB1 and FEB2), but specific genes have not yet been identified. We recently described a clinical subset, termed generalized epilepsy with febrile seizures plus (GEFS+), in which many family members have seizures with fever that may persist beyond six years of age or be associated with afebrile generalized seizures. We now report linkage, in another large GEFS+ family, to chromosome region 19q13.1 and identification of a mutation in the voltage-gated sodium (Na+)-channel beta1 subunit gene (SCN1B). The mutation changes a conserved cysteine residue disrupting a putative disulfide bridge which normally maintains an extracellular immunoglobulin-like fold. Co-expression of the mutant beta1 subunit with a brain Na+-channel alpha subunit in Xenopus laevis oocytes demonstrates that the mutation interferes with the ability of the subunit to modulate channel-gating kinetics consistent with a loss-of-function allele. This observation develops the theme that idiopathic epilepsies are a family of channelopathies and raises the possibility of involvement of other Na+-channel subunit genes in febrile seizures and generalized epilepsies with complex inheritance patterns.
Keywords:	Amino Acid Sequence, Human, Pair 19 Chromosomes, DNA Mutational Analysis, Generalized Epilepsy, Linkage (Genetics), Molecular Sequence Data, Oocytes, Patch-Clamp Techniques, Pedigree, Point Mutation, Febrile Seizures, Sodium Channels, Tasmania, Animals, Xenopus laevis
Source:	Nature Genetics
ISSN:	1061-4036
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Volume:	19
Number:	4
Page Range:	366-370
Date:	1 August 1998
Official Publication:	https://doi.org/10.1038/1252
PubMed:	View item in PubMed

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