Whole exome sequencing identified mutations causing hearing loss in five consanguineous Pakistan families

Abstract Background: Hearing loss is the most common sensory defect that affects over 6% of the population worldwide. About 50%-60% of hearing loss patients are attributed to genetic causes. Currently more than 100 genes have been reported to cause non-syndromic hearing loss. It’s possible and efficient to screen all potential disease-causing genes for hereditary hearing loss by whole exome sequencing (WES).Methods: We collected 5 consanguineous pedigrees with hearing loss from Pakistan and applied WES on selected patients for each pedigree, followed by bioinformatics analysis and Sanger validation to identify the causing genes for them.Results: Variants in 7 genes were identified and validated in these pedigrees. We identified single candidate for 3 pedigrees, which were GIPC3 (c.937T>C), LOXHD1 (c.2935G>A) and TMPRSS3 (c.941T>C). And the remaining 2 pedigrees each contained two candidates, which were TECTA (c.4045G>A) and MYO15A (c.3310G>T and c.1705G>C) for one pedigree and DFNB59 (c.494G>A) and TRIOBP (c.1952C>T) for the other pedigree. The candidates were validated in all available samples by Sanger sequencing.Conclusion: The candidate variants in hearing loss genes were validated to be co-segregated in the pedigrees, which may indicate the reasons for such patients. We also suggested that WES may be suitable strategy for hearing loss gene screening in clinical detection.