BACKGROUND Rett syndrome is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder, almost exclusively affecting females and characterised by a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations. Both the classic form and preserved speech variant of Rett syndrome are due to mutations in the MECP2 gene. Several other variants of Rett syndrome have been described. In 1985, Hanefeld described a variant with the early appeara...

AIM In female children with drug-resistant seizures and developmental delay from birth, atypical Rett syndrome caused by mutations in the CDKL5 gene should be considered. Several clinical features resemble classic Rett syndrome. Respiratory and sleep abnormalities are frequently present in Rett syndrome, whereas little is known in patients with CDKL5 mutations. METHOD In four genetically conf...

To date, 43 patients have been described with mutations in or involving the CDKL5 gene. The typical phenotype includes early-onset, often intractable epileptic seizures and severe mental retardation with very limited progress in psychomotor development. Most patients also show impaired social interaction with avoidance of eye-to-eye contact, and some clinical features reminiscent of Rett syndro...

OBJECTIVE Epilepsy with mutation of the CDKL5 gene causes early seizures and is a variant of Rett syndrome (MIM (312750), which is reported typically as infantile spasms. The purpose of this study was to analyze the epileptic histories and EEGs of patients with the CDKL5 mutation. METHODS We reviewed the epilepsy histories and electroclinical analyses of three girls aged 9.5, 7.4, and 9.4 yea...

It was with great interest that we read the report by Martínez et al. [1] entitled “CDKL5 in different atypical Rett syndrome variants: Description of the first eight patients from Spain”, and in particular of a late C-terminal missense mutation in CDKL5. The mutation described, p.Pro976Leu (c.2927C>T) was identified in a female patient with Rett syndrome (RTT) with regression of late onset. Th...

Rett syndrome (RS) is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that contributes significantly to severe intellectual disability in females worldwide. It is caused by mutations in MECP2 in the majority of cases, but a proportion of atypical cases may result from mutations in CDKL5, particularly the early onset seizure variant. The relationship between MECP2 and CDKL5, and whether they cause RS throu...

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder affecting females almost exclusively and is characterized by a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations. Mutations in the X-linked methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MECP2) gene have been found in up to 95% of classical RTT cases and a lesser proportion of atypical cases. Recently, mutations in another X-linked gene, CDKL5 (cyclin-dependent...