<p>The study was designed to investigate the role of somatic mosaic mutations in the pathogenesis of sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sALS) and frontotemporal dementia (sFTD). A panel of molecular inversion probes (MIP) were used to target the exons and exon-intron junctions of 88 neurodegeneration-related genes. The panel included 34 ALS/FTD genes, 10 Alzheimer's disease genes, 28 Parkinson's disease genes, and 16 genes associated with other rare neurodegenerative disorders. The panel was used to perform ultra-deep sequencing on postmortem brain and spinal cord from 404 individuals with sALS or sFTD and 144 age-matched neurotypical controls. Known pathogenic germline mutations were found in 20.6% of ALS cases and 26.5% of FTD cases. Predicted pathogenic somatic mutations were observed in 2.7% of sALS and sFTD cases that did not have known germline mutations. The somatic variants had low variant allele fraction and region-specific enrichment, particularly in the primary motor cortex of sALS cases and prefrontal cortex of sFTD cases. <br></p>

Somatic Mosaicism in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Dementia

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