Developmental Consequences of Defective ATG7-Mediated Autophagy in Humans

Authors: Jack J. Collier, Claire Guissart, Monika Oláhová, Souphatta Sasorith, Florence Piron‐Prunier, Fumi Suomi, David Zhang, Nuria Martinez-Lopez, Nicolas Leboucq, Angela Bahr, Silvia Azzarello‐Burri, Selina Reich, Lüdger Schöls, Tuomo Polvikoski, Pierre Meyer, Lise Larrieu, Andrew M. Schaefer, Hessa S. Alsaif, Suad Alyamani, Stephan Züchner, Inês A. Barbosa, Charu Deshpande, Angela Pyle, Anita Rauch, Matthis Synofzik, Fowzan S. Alkuraya, François Rivier, Mina Ryten, Robert McFarland, Agnés Delahodde, Thomas G. McWilliams, Michel Koenig, Robert W. Taylor - New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM 2021 cited by 194

BACKGROUND: ) genes in mice leads to embryonic or perinatal lethality, and conditional models show neurodegeneration. Impaired autophagy has been associated with a range of complex human diseases, yet congenital autophagy disorders are rare. METHODS: We performed a genetic, clinical, and neuroimaging analysis involving five families. Mechanistic investigations were conducted with the use of patient-derived fibroblasts, skeletal muscle-biopsy specimens, mouse embryonic fibroblasts, and yeast. RESULTS: . CONCLUSIONS: We identified several patients with a neurodevelopmental disorder who have survived with a severe loss or complete absence of ATG7, an essential effector enzyme for autophagy without a known functional paralogue. (Funded by the Wellcome Centre for Mitochondrial Research and others.).