RNU4atac-opathy encompasses the phenotypic spectrum of biallelic RNU4ATAC pathogenic variants, including the three historically designated clinical phenotypes microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type I/III (MOPDI), Roifman syndrome, and Lowry-Wood syndrome, as well as varying combinations of the disease features / system involvement that do not match specific defined phenotypes. Findings present in all affected individuals include growth restriction, microcephaly, skeletal dysplasia, and cognitive impairment. Less common but variable findings include brain anomalies, seizures, strokes, immunodeficiency, and cardiac anomalies, as well as ophthalmologic, skin, renal, gastrointestinal, hearing, and endocrine involvement. The diagnosis of RNU4atac-opathy is established in a proband with suggestive findings and biallelic pathogenic (or likely pathogenic) variants in RNU4ATAC identified by molecular genetic testing. Treatment of manifestations: Supportive care to improve quality of life, maximize function, and reduce complications is recommended. This ideally involves multidisciplinary care by specialists in relevant fields, including orthopedists to monitor the associated skeletal dysplasia and immunologists to manage antibiotic treatment of infections and use of immunoglobulin replacement therapy as indicated to avoid life-threatening infections. Surveillance: To monitor existing manifestations and response to supportive care (such as growth, developmental progress, and educational needs), and to detect new manifestations (particularly brain MRI for detection of stroke in children with MOPDI with neurologic deterioration). Agents/circumstances to avoid: Perform immunologic evaluation prior to administration of live vaccines. For those with MOPDI, minimize medically stressful situations as much as possible, including stress during anesthesia, due to energy-related strokes. RNU4atac-opathy is inherited in an autosomal recessive manner. If both parents are known to be heterozygous for an RNU4ATAC pathogenic variant, each sib of an affected individual has at conception a 25% chance of being affected, a 50% chance of being an asymptomatic carrier, and a 25% chance of inheriting neither of the familial pathogenic variants. Intrafamilial clinical variability has been reported between sibs who inherit the same biallelic RNU4ATAC pathogenic variants. Once the RNU4ATAC pathogenic variants have been identified in an affected family member, carrier testing for at-risk relatives and prenatal/preimplantation genetic testing are possible.

Biallelic pathogenic variants in RNU4ATAC cause microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type I (MOPD1), Roifman syndrome (RS) and Lowry-Wood syndrome (LWS). These conditions demonstrate significant phenotypic heterogeneity yet have overlapping features. Although historically described as discrete conditions they appear to represent a phenotypic spectrum with clinical features not always aligning with diagnostic categories. Clinical variability and ambiguity in diagnostic criteria exist among each disorder. Here we report an individual with a novel genotype and phenotype spanning all three disorders, expanding the phenotypic spectrum of RNU4ATAC-related spliceosomeopathies.

Vertebrate genomes contain major (>99.5%) and minor (<0.5%) introns that are spliced by the major and minor spliceosomes, respectively. Major intron splicing follows the exon-definition model, whereby major spliceosome components first assemble across exons. However, since most genes with minor introns predominately consist of major introns, formation of exon-definition complexes in these genes would require interaction between the major and minor spliceosomes. Here, we report that minor spliceosome protein U11-59K binds to the major spliceosome U2AF complex, thereby supporting a model in which the minor spliceosome interacts with the major spliceosome across an exon to regulate the splicing of minor introns. Inhibition of minor spliceosome snRNAs and U11-59K disrupted exon-bridging interactions, leading to exon skipping by the major spliceosome. The resulting aberrant isoforms contained a premature stop codon, yet were not subjected to nonsense-mediated decay, but rather bound to polysomes. Importantly, we detected elevated levels of these alternatively spliced transcripts in individuals with minor spliceosome-related diseases such as Roifman syndrome, Lowry-Wood syndrome and early-onset cerebellar ataxia. In all, we report that the minor spliceosome informs splicing by the major spliceosome through exon-definition interactions and show that minor spliceosome inhibition results in aberrant alternative splicing in disease.

Disruption of the minor spliceosome due to mutations in RNU4ATAC is linked to primordial dwarfism in microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type 1, Roifman syndrome, and Lowry-Wood syndrome. Similarly, primordial dwarfism in domesticated animals is linked to positive selection in minor spliceosome components. Despite being vital for limb development and size regulation, its role remains unexplored. Here, we disrupt minor spliceosome function in the developing mouse limb by ablating one of its essential components, U11 small nuclear RNA, which resulted in micromelia. Notably, earlier loss of U11 corresponded to increased severity. We find that limb size is reduced owing to elevated minor intron retention in minor intron-containing genes that regulate cell cycle. As a result, limb progenitor cells experience delayed prometaphase-to-metaphase transition and prolonged S-phase. Moreover, we observed death of rapidly dividing, distally located progenitors. Despite cell cycle defects and cell death, the spatial expression of key limb patterning genes was maintained. Overall, we show that the minor spliceosome is required for limb development via size control potentially shared in disease and domestication.

Lowry-Wood syndrome (LWS) is a skeletal dysplasia characterized by multiple epiphyseal dysplasia associated with microcephaly, developmental delay and intellectual disability, and eye involvement. Pathogenic variants in RNU4ATAC, an RNA of the minor spliceosome important for the excision of U12-dependent introns, have been recently associated with LWS. This gene had previously also been associated with microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism (MOPD) and Roifman syndrome (RS), two distinct conditions which share with LWS some skeletal and neurological anomalies. We performed exome sequencing in two individuals with Lowry-Wood syndrome. We report RNU4ATAC pathogenic variants in two further patients. Moreover, an analysis of all RNU4ATAC variants reported so far showed that FitCons scores for nucleotides mutated in the more severe MOPD are higher than RS or LWS and that they were more frequently located in the 5' Stem-Loop of the RNA critical for the formation of the U4/U6.U5 tri-snRNP complex, whereas the variants are more dispersed in the other conditions. We are thus confirming that RNU4ATAC is the gene responsible for LWS and provide a genotype-phenotype correlation analysis.