Identification of Potentially Pathogenic Variants in the Posterior Polymorphous Corneal Dystrophy 1 Locus

Purpose: To identify the genetic basis of posterior polymorphous corneal dystrophy 1 (PPCD1). Methods: Next-generation sequencing was performed on DNA samples from 4 affected and 4 unaffected members of a previously reported family with PPCD1 linked to chromosome 20 between D20S182 and D20S195. Custom capture probes were utilized for targeted region capture of the linked interval. Single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and insertions/deletions (indels) were identified using two bioinformatics pipelines and two annotation databases. Candidate variants met the following criteria: quality score ≥20, read depth ≥5X, heterozygous, novel or rare (minor allele frequency (MAF) ≤ 0.05), present in each affected individual and absent in each unaffected individual. Structural variants were detected with two different microarray platforms to identify indels of varying sizes. Results: Sequencing reads aligned to the linked region on chromosome 20, and high coverage was obtained across the sequenced region. The majority of identified variants were detected with both pipelines and annotation databases, although unique variants were identified. Twelve SNVs in 10 genes (2 synonymous variants and 10 noncoding variants) and 9 indels in 7 genes met the filtering criteria and were considered candidate variants for PPCD1. Conclusions: Next-generation sequencing of the PPCD1 interval has identified 17 genes containing novel or rare SNVs and indels that segregate with the affected phenotype in an affected family previously mapped to the PPCD1 locus. We anticipate that screening of these candidate genes in other families previously mapped to the PPCD1 locus will result in the identification of the genetic basis of PPCD1. Four affected and 4 unaffected individuals from a single family were analyzed for copy number variation within the PPCD1 disease locus. Array design and analysis is based on genome build hg19.