Harnessing Mondo and the ILAE Classification for Curation and Analysis of 71,942 epilepsy patient variants

Abstract

Mapping epilepsy variants in ClinVar to standard disease classifications remains challenging due to incomplete phenotype information. We integrated the Mondo Disease Ontology (Mondo) with the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) Classification to systematically identify, organize, and analyze age-dependent epilepsy-associated variants from the worlds largest public variant repository. Starting from over three million ClinVar entries, we filtered monogenic disorders tagged with 421 Mondo terms representing neonatal/infantile, childhood, or variable-onset epilepsy syndromes. Gene-disease validity was further refined using multiple expert-curated lists, resulting in 71,942 unique variant submissions in 171 genes. Approximately 70% of pathogenic and uncertain variants clustered in 50 genes, highlighting the concentration of clinically relevant findings in a relatively small subset of known epilepsy genes. SCN1A, GRIN2A, and DEPDC5 stood out as top contributors to neonatal/infantile, childhood, and variable-onset syndromes, respectively. Notably, two-thirds of genes were specific to a single age group, but the remaining one-third spanned multiple syndromes, reflecting both phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity. We also observed substantial overlap with neurodevelopmental and autism-related genes, especially among early-onset epilepsies, emphasizing shared molecular pathways. Our Mondo-driven approach demonstrates the feasibility of large-scale, ontology-based curation of ClinVar for domain-specific analyses, offering greater clinical precision than traditional text-based queries. This resource can guide epilepsy-focused gene panel design, inform new classification updates, and pave the way for age-targeted therapeutics. By bridging the gap between extensive genomic repositories and detailed clinical ontologies, we provide a robust, standardized framework to accelerate progress in precision epilepsy genetics.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Funding Statement

This study did not receive any funding.

Author Declarations

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

All the used sources containing human data are publicly available. We specifically used ClinVar data (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/clinvar/), SFARI Gene database (https://gene.sfari.org/), and SySNDD database (https://sysndd.dbmr.unibe.ch/).

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Yes

I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

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I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable.

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Data Availability

Data produced in the present study are available in the manuscript text and supplemental files. Any additional data is available upon reasonable request to the authors.

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