Clarifying the threshold of somatic mosaicism disrupting the brain function

Abstract

Somatic mosaicism in a fraction of brain cells causes neurodevelopmental disorders, including childhood intractable epilepsy. However, the threshold for somatic mosaicism leading to brain dysfunction is unknown. In this study, I induced various mosaic burdens in mice of focal cortical dysplasia type II (FCD II), featuring mTOR somatic mosaicism and spontaneous behavioral seizures. Mosaic burdens ranged from approximately 1,000 to 40,000 neurons expressing the mTOR mutant in the somatosensory (SSC) or medial prefrontal (PFC) cortex. Surprisingly, just ~8,000-9,000 neurons expressing the MTOR mutant were sufficient to trigger epileptic seizures. Mutational burden correlated with seizure frequency and onset, with a higher tendency for electrographic interictal spikes and beta- and gamma-frequency oscillations in FCD II mice exceeding the threshold. Moreover, mutation-negative FCD II patients in deep sequencing of their bulky brain tissues revealed somatic mosaicism of mTOR pathway genes as low as 0.07% in resected brain tissues through ultra deep targeted sequencing (up to 20 million reads). Thus, this study suggests that extremely low levels of somatic mosaicism can contribute to brain dysfunction.