UC San Diego

Iron-sulfur cluster proteins are involved in critical functions for gene expression regulation and mitochondrial bioenergetics including the oxidative phosphorylation system. The c.215G>A p.(Arg72Gln) variant in NFS1 has been previously reported to cause infantile mitochondrial complex II and III deficiency. We describe three additional unrelated patients with the same missense variant. Two infants with the same homozygous variant presented with hypotonia, weakness and lactic acidosis, and one patient with compound heterozygous p.(Arg72Gln) and p.(Arg412His) variants presented as a young adult with gastrointestinal symptoms and fatigue. Skeletal muscle biopsy from patients 1 and 3 showed abnormal mitochondrial morphology, and functional analyses demonstrated decreased activity in respiratory chain complex II and variably in complexes I and III. We found decreased mitochondrial and cytosolic aconitase activities but only mildly affected lipoylation of pyruvate dehydrogenase and 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase enzymes. Our studies expand the phenotypic spectrum and provide further evidence for the pathogenicity and functional sequelae of NFS1-related disorders with disturbances in both mitochondrial and cytosolic iron-sulfur cluster containing enzymes.