TCF12 microdeletion in a 72-year-old woman with intellectual disability

Abstract

Heterozygous mutations in TCF12 were recently identified as an important cause of craniosynostosis. In the original series, 14% of patients with a mutation in TCF12 had significant developmental delay or learning disability. We report on the first case of TCF12 microdeletion, detected by array-comparative genomic hybridization, in a 72-year-old patient presenting with intellectual deficiency and dysmorphism. Multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification analysis indicated that exon 19, encoding the functionally important basic helix-loop-helix domain, was included in the deleted segment in addition to exon 20. We postulate that the TCF12 microdeletion is responsible for this patient's intellectual deficiency and facial phenotype.