Expanding the phenotypic and molecular spectrum of RNA polymerase III–related leukodystrophy

OBJECTIVE: To expand the phenotypic spectrum of severity of POLR3-related leukodystrophy and identify genotype-phenotype correlations through study of patients with extremely severe phenotypes. METHODS: We performed an international cross-sectional study on patients with genetically proven POLR3-related leukodystrophy and atypical phenotypes to identify 6 children, 3 males and 3 females, with an extremely severe phenotype compared with that typically reported. Clinical, radiologic, and molecular features were evaluated for all patients, and functional and neuropathologic studies were performed on 1 patient. RESULTS: Each patient presented between 1 and 3 months of age with failure to thrive, severe dysphagia, and developmental delay. Four of the 6 children died before age 3 years. MRI of all patients revealed a novel pattern with atypical characteristics, including progressive basal ganglia and thalami abnormalities. Neuropathologic studies revealed patchy areas of decreased myelin in the cerebral hemispheres, cerebellum, brainstem, and spinal cord, with astrocytic gliosis in the white matter and microglial activation. Cellular vacuolization was observed in the thalamus and basal ganglia, and neuronal loss was evident in the putamen and caudate. Genotypic similarities were also present between all 6 patients, with one allele containing a POLR3A variant causing a premature stop codon and the other containing a specific intronic splicing variant (c.1771-7C>G), which produces 2 aberrant transcripts along with some wild-type transcript. CONCLUSIONS: We describe genotype-phenotype correlations at the extreme end of severity of the POLR3-related leukodystrophy spectrum and shed light on the complex disease pathophysiology.