ArticleEuropean journal of human genetics : EJHG2015
Diagnostic approach for FSHD revisited: SMCHD1 mutations cause FSHD2 and act as modifiers of disease severity in FSHD1.
Article in European journal of human genetics : EJHG, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed, 107 citations in OpenAlex.
- SMCHD1 Is Dispensable for Repeat-Induced FMR1 Hypermethylation in Fragile X Pluripotent Stem Cells.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Immunohistological and electron microscopy profile of unique TIRM-MRI guided muscle biopsies of FSHD patients.Journal of neuromuscular diseases · 2026Article
- SMCHD1 loss re-wires MYOD1 enhancer nexuses and chromatin accessibility landscapes in muscle cells.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Observational
- Genome-wide analysis of FSHD cell lines using Nanopore sequencing reveals allele-specific differences at DUX4 target genes and complex repeats.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Adaptive response to electrical pulse stimulation is impaired in FSHD myotubes by DUX4 gene network activation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Diversity challenges and reconciles genetics in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.Journal of human genetics · 2025Review
- A systemically deliverable lipid-conjugated siRNA targeting DUX4 as an facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy therapeutic.Molecular therapy. Methods & clinical development · 2025Article
- SMCHD1 genetic variants in type 2 facioscapulohumeral dystrophy and challenges in predicting pathogenicity and disease penetrance.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2025Article
- Temporal variation in p38-mediated regulation of DUX4 in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Integrating D4Z4 methylation analysis into clinical practice: improvement of FSHD molecular diagnosis through distinct thresholds for 4qA/4qA and 4qA/4qB patients.Clinical epigenetics · 2024Article
- SMCHD1 activates the expression of genes required for the expansion of human myoblasts.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- D4Z4 Hypomethylation in Human Germ Cells.Cells · 2024Article
- French National Protocol for diagnosis and care of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD).Journal of neurology · 2024Review
- DNMT3B splicing dysregulation mediated by SMCHD1 loss contributes to DUX4 overexpression and FSHD pathogenesis.Science advances · 2024Article
- Engineered FSHD mutations results in D4Z4 heterochromatin disruption and feedforward DUX4 network activation.iScience · 2024Article
- Influence ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Article
- DUX4 double whammy: The transcription factor that causes a rare muscular dystrophy also kills the precursors of the human nose.Science advances · 2023Article
- Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy: the road to targeted therapies.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2023Review
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is an autosomal dominant muscular disorder with a wide clinical variability. Contractions of the D4Z4 macrosatellite repeat on chromosome 4q35 are the molecular basis of the pathophysiology. Recently, in a subset of patients without D4Z4 repeat contractions, variants in the SMCHD1 gene have been identified that lead to hypomethylation of D4Z4 and thus DUX4 transcription, which causes FSHD type 2. In this study, we have screened 55 FSHD1-negative and 40 FSHD1-positive patients from unrelated families for potentially pathogenic variants in SMCHD1 by next-generation sequencing (NGS). We identified variants in SMCHD1 in 11 index patients, including missense, splice site and non-sense mutations. We developed a pyrosequencing assay to determine the methylation status of the D4Z4 repeat array and found significantly lower methylation levels for FSHD2 patients than for healthy controls and FSHD1 patients. Two out of eleven SMCHD1 mutation carriers had moderately contracted D4Z4 alleles thus these patients are suffering from FSHD1 and 2. Comparing the phenotype of patients, all FSHD2 patients were relatively mildly affected while patients with FSHD1+2 were much more severely affected than expected from their D4Z4 copy number. Our findings confirm the role of SMCHD1 mutations in FSHD2 and as a modifier of disease severity. With SMCHD1 variants found in 16.4% of phenotypic FSHD patients without D4Z4 repeat contractions, the incidence of FSHD2 is rather high and hence we suggest including sequencing of SMCHD1, haplotyping and methylation analysis in the workflow of molecular FSHD diagnostics.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.