The Phenolyzer Suite: Prioritizing the Candidate Genes Involved in Microtia

Objective: Microtia is a congenital malformation of the external ear. Great progress about the genetic of microtia has been made in recent years. This article was to prioritize the potential candidate pathogenic genes of microtia based on existing studies and reports, with the purpose of narrowing the range of following study scientifically and quickly. Method: A computational tool called Phenolyzer (phenotype-based gene analyzer) was used to prioritize microtia genes. Microtia, as a query term, was input in the interface of Phenolyzer. After several steps, including disease match, gene query, gene score system, seed gene growth, and gene ranking, the final results about genetic information of microtia were provided. Then we tracked details of the top 10 genes ranked by Phenolyzer on the basis of previous reports. Results: We detected 10 348 genes associated with microtia or related syndromes, and 78 genes of those genes belonged to seed genes. Every gene was given a score, and the gene with higher scores was more likely influence microtia. The top 10 ranked genes included HOXA2, CHD7, CDT1, ORC1, ORC4, ORC6, CDC6, MED12, TWIST1, and GLI3. Otherwise, four gene-gene interactions were displayed. Conclusion: This article prioritized candidate genes of microtia for the first time. High-throughput methods provide tens of thousands of single-nucleotide variants, indels, and structural variants, and only a handful are relevant to microtia or associated syndromes. Combine the ranked potential pathogenic genes list from Phenolyzer with the results of samples provided by high-throughput methods, and more precise research directions are presented.