This is the first reported experience of a local implementation program for the genetic evaluation of patients with RUD in Chile using exome sequencing. The process allowed us to establish a trained team for clinical assessment and exome analysis through a rigorous pipeline that enabled the diagnosis in approximately half of the study participants. It also permitted tens of patients with severe previously undiagnosed disorders to receive information on the cause of their condition.
The process of implementation highlights the relevance of international collaboration to obtain critical knowledge and training when these resources are unavailable locally. To circumvent the lack of genomic capabilities at scale in Chile, our strategy relied on outsourcing the sequencing component, while leveraging and developing capacities in the clinical evaluation and bioinformatics analysis that can be performed in-house. Albeit the use of a commercially available interpretation platform increases the costs compared to the use of freely available software, we opted for the former for data security reasons, consistency in the analyses, and to build this project with standards that could be transferred to a clinical laboratory. The hybrid strategy used in DECIPHERD can serve as an intermediate step in establishing autonomous local genomic services for undiagnosed diseases and other genetic conditions in settings of similar limited resources.
As result of the study, we were able to identify a molecular etiology for almost half of the participants across a wide range of clinical phenotypes. This is similar to published data from large studies in European and North American populations (10, 25) and higher than studies in Argentina and Brazil, reporting detection rates of 30–40% (26, 27). Our approach also identified patients in special situations, such as known dominant conditions presenting in probably recessive forms, and also of potential dual diagnosis.
ES had higher diagnostic yield than CES in this study. We explored the latter strategy in the initial phase of the program, given the available local sequencing capacities and published reports showing that proband-only CES could be a cost-effective solution in resource-limited settings (28). Nevertheless, the use of CES limits the identification of potential novel candidate genes, which can be of special relevance in understudied populations. In addition, and as seen in other admixed populations, de novo variants were a major contributor to the severe phenotypes observed in the patients. (10, 25, 29, 30). The ES pipeline also allowed detection of both SNVs and CNVs, demonstrating the benefits of a single integrated genomic test for persons with RUD. These observations provide arguments in favor of the recommendation for trio ES analysis to increase diagnostic rates this population.
Regarding the inherited variants, three of the eight patients with homozygous findings reported parental consanguinity. This information may have been unknown or undeclared by the rest of the families, or the findings may alternatively suggest founder effects that may be of relevance to the broader Chilean population.
Importantly, almost half of our informative findings have not been previously described in large, publicly available population or clinical databases such as gnomAD and ClinVar. This highlights the need to increase diversity of genomic variation studies, since including understudied populations can make substantial contributions to relevant new knowledge, valuable for clinical and other genomic applications (31–33).
The presence of neurologic findings (mainly intellectual disability) was positively associated with diagnostic yield, while immune dysfunction was negatively associated. The former is similar to the recent findings of Wright et al ((10), but we did not find other statistically significant and clinically relevant associations as shown in their study. This could be due to the small sample size that limits statistical power. It is relevant to note that all probands entering the study due to dysfunction of the immune system had prior negative gene panel testing, while the remaining patients had more heterogeneous pre-entry genetic testing.
Limitations of our study included the relatively small sample size and the small number of samples that underwent head-to-head comparison of results which precluded an in-depth analysis of performance metrics in this implementation process. Pre-inclusion clinical evaluations were very heterogeneous among participants as mentioned above, owing to the different availability of genetic services across the country. Despite DECIPHERD´s efforts to have broad geographic representation and work as a country-wide network, most of the participants came from the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, which has the largest concentration of the population and even disproportionately larger concentration of medical subspecialists ((16). Despite these limitations and potential biases, this work likely represents a “real-world” situation for Chilean RUD patients.
Several next steps are necessary to increase the diagnostic yield and to implement genomic sequencing in the Chilean health care system. First, the study of this understudied population has the potential of identifying variants in novel, unassociated candidate genes. Selected variants in novel candidate genes have been shared in GeneMatcher (34) and connections with colleagues worldwide are underway. We anticipate this may contribute to the discovery of new genetically determined disorders. Second, reanalysis has proven to improve diagnostic yield of genomic testing based on new discoveries and updated bioinformatic tools (25). Our team is committed to reanalyzing exome results of this cohort after at least one year of initial analysis, and we predict this could also contribute to improving the diagnostic yield. In addition, we plan to analyze secondary findings among the families that consented to receive secondary findings, which may lead to additional clinically relevant findings. It would be ideal to also implement other strategies such as genome and/or transcriptome sequencing to further increase diagnostic yield for patients with non-informative or partially informative findings (35–37).
Nevertheless, local implementation of a sequencing pipeline is still hindered by prohibitive costs. If prices drop to cost-efficient levels for LMIC countries, it may be feasible to implement NGS at scale in our country. Sample volume is a pricing factor, particularly in a small country, and therefore collaboration between different areas and centers that use NGS can also facilitate the development of local sequencing centers. Formal and more extensive training of clinical, laboratory and bioinformatics workforce is also crucial, along with certification and accreditation. Performing testing in the country is key for patient access, as the Chilean health system does not provide financial coverage for testing performed abroad.
Another crucial element to consider for decision-makers is the impact of reaching a diagnosis. In parallel to the diagnostic pipeline described in this article, our team is collecting quantitative and qualitative information on the effects of achieving a genetic diagnosis for patients, caregivers, healthcare teams and the healthcare system to contribute with locally pertinent data and insights that can guide the elaboration of national policies.
Our work highlights the feasibility of establishing a program for rare and undiagnosed diseases in a country with limited genomic capabilities. This is aligned with the World Health Organizations call to advance genomic medicine worldwide (14), and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to “leave no one behind” (38), and we expect this work may be useful for other countries in similar situations to develop their own RUD programs.