• Mariam Aleissa, Taghrid Aloraini, Lamia Fahad Alsubaie, Madawi Hassoun, Ghada Abdulrahman, Abdulrahman Swaid, Wafa Al Eyaid, MutairiFuad AlFAFrom the Department of Genetics, King Abdullah Specialized Children Hospital, King Abdulaziz Medical City, MNGHA.From the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences., Faroug Ababneh, Majid Alfadhel, and Ahmed Alfares.
• From the Division of Translational Pathology, Department of Laboratory Medicine, King Abdulaziz Medical City.
• Ann Saudi Med. 2022 Jan 1; 42 (1): 29-35.

BackgroundScreening programs for the most prevalent conditions occurring in a country is an evidence-based prevention strategy. The burden of autosomal recessive disease variations in Saudi Arabia is high because of the highly consanguineous population. The optimal solution for estimating the carrier frequency of the most prevalent diseases is carrier screening.ObjectivesIdentify the most influential recessive alleles associated with disease in the Saudi population.DesignWe used clinical whole-exome sequencing data from an in-house familial database to evaluate the most prevalent genetic variations associated with disease in a Saudi population.SettingsKing Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) and King Abdulaziz Medical City.MethodsWhole exome sequencing data obtained from clinical studies of family members, a cohort of 1314 affected and unaffected individuals, were filtered using the in-house pipeline to extract the most prevalent variant in the dataset.Main Outcome MeasuresMost prevalent genetic variations associated with disease in the Saudi population.Sample Size1314 affected and unaffected individuals.ResultsWe identified 37 autosomal recessive variants and two heterozygous X-linked variants in 35 genes associated with the most prevalent disorders, which included hematologic (32%), endocrine (21%), metabolic (11%) and immunological (10%) diseases.ConclusionThis study provides an update of the most frequently occurring alleles, which support future carrier screening programs.LimitationsSingle center that might represent the different regions but may be biased. In addition, most of the families included in the database are part of the proband's genetic identification for specific phenotypes.Conflict Of InterestNone.

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