Science
Scientific articles
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Generation of iPSCs for Rare Diseases
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) represent excellent in vitro models to study rare diseases and perform high-throughput drug screening. CENTOGENE has established iPSC technology for rare monogenetic diseases in its Rostock headquarters based on patient-derived fibroblasts.
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Moving Towards New Therapies for Fabry Disease
Fabry disease is a multi-system lysosomal storage disorder. As it is caused by an enzyme deficiency, enzyme replacement therapy is the standard treatment option. To overcome some of the issues with this strategy, alternatives are being explored through a collaborative effort involving researchers…
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Understanding DNA Alterations in Colorectal Cancer
Germline and somatic DNA alterations may cause inherited diseases and/or cancer. While CENTOGENE’s routine diagnostic focus is on the former, we frequently address oncological questions in research settings. Deep sequencing of colorectal tumors in one such project provided unprecedented insights…
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A Novel Genetic Syndrome
Standard genome-scale diagnostics fail to identify a pathogenic variant in up to 50% of patients. CENTOGENE’s free-of-charge ‘research analysis’ of such cases frequently provides strong evidence for yet undescribed gene-disease associations. As a recent example, bi-allelic loss-of-function variants…
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Understanding Neurodegeneration in Niemann-Pick Disease
Niemann-Pick (NP) disease is a lysosomal storage disorder that involves the degeneration of certain neurons. A recent study, co-authored by CENTOGENE’s CEO Prof. Arndt Rolfs, investigated this process using an electrophysiological approach. The findings of disturbed synaptic signaling open up novel…
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Characterization of an Ultra-Rare Disorder
Novel gene-disease associations are continuously being proposed, but the underlying evidence is frequently based on only a few patients from a single family. CENTOGENE’s focus on rare disease diagnostics has enabled us to internally confirm many pertinent observations. For a rare form of…
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An Unorthodox Disease Mechanism
Essential proteins are defined as those that are necessary for living. In theory, homozygous loss-of-function variants that only affect certain isoforms may still be found in living individuals. A recent study involving patients that were identified at CENTOGENE presents one of the first examples of…
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Disease relevance of alternative splicing
Alternative splicing of genes usually generates several isoforms. These may code for slightly differing proteins, the disease relevance of which is often not clear. Researchers from CENTOGENE, by reporting a representative example, emphasized the resulting challenges in a recent study. They…
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Diagnostic Utility of Biomarkers
Classification of genomic variants in a disease context is a highly formalized process, which benefits from diverse types of information. At CENTOGENE, this routinely involves the quantification of disease-specific biomarkers in a patient sample. The utility of this approach for deriving an…
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Novel Insights into a Rare Disorder
A profound understanding of rare genetic disorders relies on the description of large numbers of patients. Based on its unique positioning in the rare disease field, CENTOGENE can significantly contribute on multiple levels. This is exemplified by a recent corresponding study in the Journal of…