Comprehensive Computational Analysis of Protein Phenotype Changes Due to Plausible Deleterious Variants of Human SPTLC1 Gene

Genetic variations found in the coding and non-coding regions of a gene are known to influence the structure as well as the function of proteins. Serine palmitoyltransferase long chain subunit 1 a member of α-oxoamine synthase family is encoded by SPTLC1 gene which is a subunit of enzyme serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT). Mutations in SPTLC1 have been associated with hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathy type I (HSAN-I). The exact mechanism through which these mutations elicit protein phenotype changes in terms of structure, stability, and interaction with other molecules is unknown. Thus, we aimed to perform a comprehensive computational analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of SPTLC1 to prioritize a list of potential deleterious SNPs and to investigate the protein phenotype change due to functional polymorphisms. In this study, a diverse set of SPTLC1 SNPs were collected and scrutinized to categorize the potential deleterious variants. Our study concordantly identified 21 non-synonymous SNPs as pathogenic and deleterious that might induce alterations in protein structure, flexibility and stability. Moreover, evaluation of frameshift, 3’ and 5’ UTR variants shows c.*1302T>G as effective. This comprehensive in silico analysis of systematically characterized list of potential deleterious variants could open avenues as primary filter to substantiate plausible pathogenic structural and functional impact of variants.