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  • Updated 08.20.2024
  • Released 07.14.2009
  • Expires For CME 08.20.2027

Familial focal epilepsy with variable foci

Introduction

Overview

In this article, the author highlights clinical and genetic findings about NPRL2- and NPRL3-related epilepsies.

Key points

• Diagnosis of familial focal epilepsy with variable foci depends on evaluation of all family members with a history of seizures, most having temporal or frontal epilepsy.

• Seizure focus is variable across affected individuals but remains the same within individual patients.

• Mutations and variants in the GATOR1 complex genes (most frequently DEPDC5) have been identified in various familial focal epilepsy with variable foci kindreds, but also in other focal familial epilepsy kindreds, including patients with familial focal cortical dysplasia and sporadic epilepsy.

• Pharmacoresistance and malformations of cortical development can occur and have been most often associated with NPLR3 and DEPDC5 gene mutations and variants.

Historical note and terminology

Formerly known as familial partial epilepsy with variable foci, autosomal dominant familial focal epilepsy with variable foci (FFEVF) is a unique epilepsy syndrome first reported in an Australian kindred (67) after other more homogeneous familial focal epilepsy syndromes, such as familial temporal and frontal epilepsies, had been described (13; 66; 54).

Familial focal epilepsy with variable foci is unique among the familial focal epilepsies because different clinical and EEG features can be observed in different family members. On the other hand, the epileptic focus in any one individual remains the same. This syndrome with variable foci was included in the diagnostic scheme for epileptic syndromes proposed by the International League Against Epilepsy (26; 27).

Familial focal epilepsy with variable foci shows an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern with approximately 70% penetrance. Two different loci had been initially associated with this syndrome; the first suggestive linkage was found on chromosome 2q (67), but posterior reanalysis excluded such findings (39). Indeed, no other tested families showed linkage to chromosome 2q (51). Thus, the second described and proven linkage has been established on chromosome 22q (79; 78; 17; 15; 51; 39).

FFEVF can be defined based on family rather than individual phenotypes. The occurrence of at least two different focal epilepsy syndromes in first- and second-degree relatives, with or without identifiable structural brain abnormality and segregating in a sufficient number of individuals in more than one generation, can be suggestive of FFEVF. Nevertheless, many small families in which the diagnosis and the inheritance pattern could not be confirmed share common mutations and variants to definite FFEVF large kindreds (36; 25; 48).

The first gene was finally identified in 2013, with different groups worldwide reporting mutations and variants in the DEPDC5 [disheveled Egl-10 and pleckstrin (DEP) domain containing protein 5] gene on ch22q. This was found not only in familial focal epilepsy with variable foci, but also in other familial focal epilepsies (25; 36; 48; 72; 63; 61) and epileptic spasms (18). In the families studied, the frequency of DEPDC5 mutations and variants was observed as 5% to 37% (11).

Later, mutations and variants in NPRL2 (nitrogen permease regulator 2-like protein) and NPRL3 (nitrogen permease regulator 3-like protein) genes, which, similar to DEPDC5 belong to GATOR1 (GAP activity toward RAGs complex 1) and are regulators of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), were found in 2% to 11% of probands of families with focal epilepsies with or without malformations of cortical development (63; 68; 76; 47; 73). Taken together, these findings gave rise to the conceptualization of GATORopathy or mTORopathy as an etiology for familial (and later also associated with sporadic) focal epilepsies, with or without associated malformations of cortical development (50). Approximately 55% of patients identified with a GATOR1 variant or mutation present with a family history for epilepsy (07).

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