GAIN OF FUNCTION RAF1 MUTATIONS CAUSE NOONAN AND LEOPARD SYNDROMES WITH HYPERTROPHIC CARDIOMYOPATHY.

Noonan and LEOPARD syndromes are developmental disorders with overlapping features, including cardiac abnormalities, short stature and facial dysmorphia. Increased RAS signaling owing to PTPN11, SOS1 and KRAS mutations causes B60% of Noonan syndrome cases1–6, and PTPN11 mutations cause 90% of LEOPARD syndrome cases7. Here, we report that 18 of 231 individuals with Noonan syndrome without known mutations (corresponding to 3% of all affected individuals) and two of six individuals with LEOPARD syndrome without known mutations have missense mutations in RAF1, which encodes a serinethreonine kinase that activates MEK1 and MEK2. Most mutations altered a motif flanking Ser259, a residue critical for autoinhibition of RAF1 through 14-3-3 binding. Of 19 subjects with a RAF1 mutation in two hotspots, 18 (or 95%) showed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), compared with the 18% of individuals with Noonan syndrome in general who have HCM. Ectopically expressed RAF1 mutants from the two HCM hotspots had increased kinase activity and enhanced ERK activation, whereas non–HCM-associated mutants were kinase impaired. Our findings further implicate increased RAS signaling in pathological Q1 cardiomyocyte hypertrophy.