Biallelic mutations in ACO2, encoding the mitochondrial aconitase 2, have been identified in individuals with neurodegenerative syndromes, including infantile cerebellar retinal degeneration and recessive optic neuropathies (locus OPA9). By screening European cohorts of individuals with genetically unsolved inherited optic neuropathies, we identified 61 cases harbouring variants in ACO2, among whom 50 carried dominant mutations, emphasizing for the first time the important contribution of ACO2 monoallelic pathogenic variants to dominant optic atrophy. Analysis of the ophthalmological and clinical data revealed that recessive cases are affected more severely than dominant cases, while not significantly earlier. In addition, 27% of the recessive cases and 11% of the dominant cases manifested with extraocular features in addition to optic atrophy. In silico analyses of ACO2 variants predicted their deleterious impacts on ACO2 biophysical properties. Skin derived fibroblasts from patients harbouring dominant and recessive ACO2 mutations revealed a reduction of ACO2 abundance and enzymatic activity, and the impairment of the mitochondrial respiration using citrate and pyruvate as substrates, while the addition of other Krebs cycle intermediates restored a normal respiration, suggesting a possible short-cut adaptation of the tricarboxylic citric acid cycle. Analysis of the mitochondrial genome abundance disclosed a significant reduction of the mitochondrial DNA amount in all ACO2 fibroblasts. Overall, our data position ACO2 as the third most frequently mutated gene in autosomal inherited optic neuropathies, after OPA1 and WFS1, and emphasize the crucial involvement of the first steps of the Krebs cycle in the maintenance and survival of retinal ganglion cells.

Male infertility is responsible for 50 % of infertile couples. Thirty percent of male infertility is due to cytogenetic and genetic abnormalities. In Arab and North African populations, several studies have shown the association of these chromosomal abnormalities with male infertility. Our objective is to evaluate the frequency of chromosomal abnormalities and Y chromosome microdeletions in infertile men from Morocco. A total of 573 Moroccan infertile men (444 azoospermic and 129 oligozoospermic men) referred for cytogenetic analysis to the Department of Cytogenetics of the Pasteur Institute of Morocco, were screened for the presence of chromosomal abnormalities and Y chromosome microdeletions. Chromosomal abnormalities accounted for approximately 10.5 % (60/573). Fifty six cases among them have sex chromosome abnormalities (93.34 %), including Klinefelter’s syndrome in 41 patients (68.34 %). Autosomal chromosome abnormalities (6.66 %) were observed in 4 patients. Chromosomal abnormalities were more prevalent in azoospermic men (13.06 %) than in oligospermic men (1.55 %). Y microdeletions were detected in 16 of 85 patients (AZFc: 14.12 %, AZFbc: 4.70 %), most of them where azoospermic men with no chromosomal abnormality. These results highlighted the need for efficient molecular genetic testing in male infertility diagnosis. In addition, a genetic screening should be performed in infertile men before starting assisted reproductive treatments.

Mutations in the TBC1D24 gene are responsible for four neurological presentations: infantile epileptic encephalopathy, infantile myoclonic epilepsy, DOORS (deafness, onychodystrophy, osteodystrophy, mental retardation and seizures) and NSHL (non-syndromic hearing loss). For the latter, two recessive (DFNB86) and one dominant (DFNA65) mutations have so far been identified in consanguineous Pakistani and European/Chinese families, respectively. Here we report the results of a genetic study performed on a large Moroccan cohort of deaf patients that identified three families with compound heterozygote mutations in TBC1D24. Four novel mutations were identified, among which, one c.641G>A (p.Arg214His) was present in the three families, and has a frequency of 2% in control Moroccan population with normal hearing, suggesting that it acts as an hypomorphic variant leading to restricted deafness when combined with another recessive severe mutation. Altogether, our results show that mutations in TBC1D24 gene are a frequent cause (>2%) of NSHL in Morocco, and that due to its possible compound heterozygote recessive transmission, this gene should be further considered and screened in other deaf cohorts.