Background: Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) are vascular capillary anomalies with a dysfunctional endothelial adherent junction profile, depicting hemorrhage and epilepsy as the main clinical features. With the advent of an increasingly personalized medicine, better comprehension of genetic mechanisms behind CCM represents an important key in the management of the patients and risk rating in relatives. In this context, genetic factors that might influence clinical expressiveness of CCM need to be identified.
Case description: A 33-year-old woman harboring multiple CCM lesions with a CCM1 mutational profile already being treated conservatively for a right mesial temporal lobe CCM presented with refractory seizures. Magnetic resonance imaging showed no bleeding in the lesion, and the patient was submitted to complete resection of the CCM. Histopathology of the CCM samples depicted an extensive inflammatory reaction and colocalization of CD20+ and CD68+ cells. Genetic analyses of the patient and her mother demonstrated a novel CCM1 (KRIT1) frameshift mutation (c.1661_1662insT; p.Leu554PhefsTer14). Furthermore, variants in CD14 (rs778588), TLR-4 (rs10759930), SOD2 (rs4880), APEX1 (rs1130409), and OGG1 (rs1052133), known as polymorphisms related to disease aggressiveness, were detected in the patient and not in her oligosymptomatic mother harboring the same CCM1 mutation.
Conclusions: Heterogeneity of clinical manifestations among individuals with familial CCM with the same genotype adds mechanistic involvement of modifier factors as phenotypic markers. We describe a novel CCM1/KRIT1 familial mutation in which the coexistence of genetic variants in inflammation and oxidative stress may be related to variable expressiveness of the disease.
Keywords: CCM1 (KRIT1); Cerebral cavernous malformation; Drug metabolism; Inflammation; Oxidative stress.
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