Emory Genetics Laboratory, with its whole exome sequencing business accelerating, is launching a new Medical EmExome product to provide clinicians with additional confidence and coverage. To go with this, EGL director Madhuri Hegde sent us some examples of recent diagnostic successes.

One of these was part of a paper that was recently published in the journal Genetics in Medicine: a young girl with multiple symptoms (developmental delay, movement disorder, digestive and breathing problems) was diagnosed with a new type of metabolic disorder, having inherited two mutated copies of the NGLY1 gene.

Two parents whose children were diagnosed with NGLY1 mutations have an interesting commentary in the same journal, describing how next-generation sequencing and social media went hand-in-hand. [this story was also on CNN.com as “Kids who don’t cry”] Here is an excerpt from the parents’ essay:

Six of the eight patients presented in the accompanying article were linked together after parents, physicians, or scientists working on isolated cases searched online for “NGLY1.” They found a blog post describing the disorder written by the parents of the first confirmed patient. The blog chronicles the boy’s journey (initial evaluation, visits to multiple specialists, incorrect diagnoses, and ultimately the discovery of heterozygous mutations in NGLY1). It was this personal account that allowed the ordering physician, who had been tracking a second patient with NGLY1 variants, to feel confident that the two patients were suffering from the same disorder. Another patient was discovered, on a distant continent, when a parent’s Internet search for his/her child’s symptoms stumbled upon the aforementioned blog. This prompted the parents to suggest targeted NGLY1 sequencing to their child’s physician. Parent/patient-to-physician collaboration such as this is remarkable and is likely happening in other rare diseases with the advent of NGS.

As untrained people, we are not qualified to analyze whole-exome/whole-genome data. We cannot develop a therapeutic compound. We cannot design a diagnostic assay. That being said, parents can offer observations and ideas, and we can push for solutions. Nineteen months after the initial report by Need et al., five viable approaches to treatment are under active consideration, thanks to relentless digging by afflicted families…

Another case study Hegde sent us describes a baby that was born but died after just 10 days, unable to swallow and with poor muscle tone. During pregnancy, the mother had felt reduced fetal movement. For the baby, doctors ordered a variety of gene panels without finding abnormalities, but a muscle biopsy detected signs of congenital muscular dystrophy, type unknown. Whole exome sequencing was able to show that the baby’s disease came from inheriting two mutated forms of the RYR1 gene. Now the mother is pregnant again, and reports feeling lots of movement.