Detection of the SQSTM1 Mutation in a Patient with Early-Onset Hippocampal Amnestic Syndrome

Abstract

Genetics has a major role in early-onset dementia, but the correspondence between genotype and phenotype is largely tentative. We describe a 54-year-old with familial early-onset slowly-progressive episodic memory impairment with the P392L-variant in SQSTM1. The patient showed cortical atrophy and hypometabolism in the temporal lobes, but no amyloidosis biomarkers. As symptoms/neuroimaging were suggestive for Alzheimer’s disease—but biomarkers were not—and considering the family-history, genetic analysis was performed, revealing the P392L-variant in SQSTM1, which encodes for sequestosome-1/p62. Increasing evidence suggests a p62 involvement in neurodegeneration and SQSTM1 mutations have been found to cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/frontotemporal dementia. Our report suggests that the clinical spectrum of SQSTM1 variants is wider.