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Background & aimsA proportion of infants and young children with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) have subtypes associated with a single gene variant (monogenic IBD). We aimed to determine the prevalence of monogenic disease in a cohort of pediatric patients with IBD.MethodsWe performed whole-exome sequencing analyses of blood samples from an unselected cohort of 1005 children with IBD, aged 0-18 years (median age at diagnosis, 11.96 years) at a single center in Canada and their family members (2305 samples total). Variants believed to cause IBD were validated using Sanger sequencing. Biopsies from patients were analyzed by immunofluorescence and histochemical analyses.ResultsWe identified 40 rare variants associated with 21 monogenic genes among 31 of the 1005 children with IBD (including 5 variants in XIAP, 3 in DOCK8, and 2 each in FOXP3, GUCY2C, and LRBA). These variants occurred in 7.8% of children younger than 6 years and 2.3% of children aged 6-18 years. Of the 17 patients with monogenic Crohn's disease, 35% had abdominal pain, 24% had nonbloody loose stool, 18% had vomiting, 18% had weight loss, and 5% had intermittent bloody loose stool. The 14 patients with monogenic ulcerative colitis or IBD-unclassified received their diagnosis at a younger age, and their most predominant feature was bloody loose stool (78%). Features associated with monogenic IBD, compared to cases of IBD not associated with a single variant, were age of onset younger than 2 years (odds ratio [OR], 6.30; P = .020), family history of autoimmune disease (OR, 5.12; P = .002), extra-intestinal manifestations (OR, 15.36; P < .0001), and surgery (OR, 3.42; P = .042). Seventeen patients had variants in genes that could be corrected with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.ConclusionsIn whole-exome sequencing analyses of more than 1000 children with IBD at a single center, we found that 3% had rare variants in genes previously associated with pediatric IBD. These were associated with different IBD phenotypes, and 1% of the patients had variants that could be potentially corrected with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Monogenic IBD is rare, but should be considered in analysis of all patients with pediatric onset of IBD.

Original publication

DOI

10.1053/j.gastro.2020.02.023

Type

Journal article

Journal

Gastroenterology

Publication Date

06/2020

Volume

158

Pages

2208 - 2220

Addresses

SickKids Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; School of Medicine, Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Western University, Children's Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, Canada.

Keywords

Humans, Colitis, Ulcerative, Crohn Disease, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Biological Products, Treatment Outcome, Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation, Transplantation, Homologous, Prevalence, Risk Assessment, Risk Factors, Age Factors, Phenotype, Adolescent, Child, Child, Preschool, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Ontario, Female, Male, Genetic Variation, Exome Sequencing