Posts tagged ataxia
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Discovery links rare, childhood neurodegenerative diseases to common problem in DNA repair
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists studying two rare, inherited childhood neurodegenerative disorders have identified a new, possibly common source of DNA damage that may play a role in other neurodegenerative diseases, cancer and aging. The findings appear in the current issue of the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience.
Researchers showed for the first time that an enzyme required for normal DNA functioning causes DNA damage in the developing brain. DNA is the molecule found in nearly every cell that carries the instructions needed to assemble and sustain life.
The enzyme is topoisomerase 1 (Top1). Normally, Top1 works by temporarily attaching to and forming a short-lived molecule called a Top1 cleavage complex (Top1cc). Top1ccs cause reversible breaks in one strand of the double-stranded DNA molecule. That prompts DNA to partially unwind, allowing cells to access the DNA molecule in preparation for cell division or to begin production of the proteins that do the work of cells.
Different factors, including the free radicals that are a byproduct of oxygen metabolism, result in Top1ccs becoming trapped on DNA and accumulating in cells. This study, however, is the first to link the buildup to disease. The results also broaden scientific understanding of the mechanisms that maintain brain health.
Investigators made the connection between DNA damage and accumulation of Top1cc while studying DNA repair problems in the rare neurodegenerative disorders ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) and spinocerebellar ataxia with axonal neuropathy 1(SCAN1). The diseases both involve progressive difficulty with walking and other movement. This study showed that A-T and SCAN1 also share the buildup of Top1ccs as a common mechanism of DNA damage. A-T is associated with a range of other health problems, including an increased risk of leukemia, lymphoma and other cancers.
“We are now working to understand how this newly recognized source of DNA damage might contribute to tumor development or the age-related DNA damage in the brain that is associated with neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease,”said co-corresponding author Peter McKinnon, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Department of Genetics. The co-corresponding author is Sachin Katyal, Ph.D., of the University of Manitoba Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and formerly of St. Jude.
A-T and SCAN1 are caused by mutations in different enzymes involved in DNA repair. Mutations in the ATM protein lead to A-T. Alterations in the Tdp1 protein cause SCAN1.
Working in nerve cells growing in the laboratory and in the nervous system of specially bred mice, researchers showed for the first time that ATM and Tdp1 work cooperatively to repair breaks in DNA. Scientists also demonstrated how the proteins accomplish the task.
The results revealed a new role for ATM in repairing single-strand DNA breaks. Until this study, ATM was linked to double-strand DNA repair. ATM was also known to work exclusively as a protein kinase. Kinases are enzymes that use chemicals called phosphate groups to regulate other proteins.
Scientists reported that when Top1ccs are trapped ATM functions as a protein kinase and alert cells to the DNA damage. But researchers found ATM also serves a more direct role by marking the trapped Top1ccs for degradation by the protein complex cells use to get rid of damaged or unnecessary proteins. ATM accomplishes that task by promoting the addition of certain proteins called ubiquitin and SUMO to the Top1cc surface.
Tdp1 then completes the DNA-repair process by severing the chemical bonds that tether Top1 to DNA.
Mice lacking either Atm or Tdp1 survived with apparently normal neurological function. But compared to normal mice, the animals missing either protein had elevated levels of Top1cc. Those levels rose sharply during periods of rapid brain development and in response to radiation, oxidation and other factors known to cause breaks in DNA.
When researchers knocked out both Atm and Tdp1, Top1cc accumulation rose substantially as did a form of programmed cell death called apoptosis. Investigators reported that apoptosis was concentrated in the developing brain and few mice survived to birth. McKinnon said the results add to evidence that the brain is particularly sensitive to DNA damage.
Researchers then used the anti-cancer drug topotecan to link elevated levels of Top1cc to the cell death and other problems seen in mice lacking Atm and Tdp1. Topotecan works by trapping Top1ccs in tumor cells, resulting in the DNA damage that triggers apoptosis. Investigators showed that the impact of Top1cc accumulation was strikingly similar whether the cause was topotecan or the loss of Atm and Tdp1.
(Source: stjude.org)
Epilepsy in a dish: Stem cell research reveals clues to disease’s origins and possible treatment
A new stem cell-based approach to studying epilepsy has yielded a surprising discovery about what causes one form of the disease, and may help in the search for better medicines to treat all kinds of seizure disorders.
The findings, reported by a team of scientists from the University of Michigan Medical School and colleagues, use a technique that could be called “epilepsy in a dish”.
By turning skin cells of epilepsy patients into stem cells, and then turning those stem cells into neurons, or brain nerve cells, the team created a miniature testing ground for epilepsy. They could even measure the signals that the cells were sending to one another, through tiny portals called sodium channels.
In neurons derived from the cells of children who have a severe, rare genetic form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome, the researchers report abnormally high levels of sodium current activity. They saw spontaneous bursts of communication and “hyperexcitability” that could potentially set off seizures. Neurons made from the skin cells of people without epilepsy showed none of this abnormal activity.
They report their results online in the Annals of Neurology, and have further work in progress to create induced pluripotent stem cell lines from the cells of patients with other genetic forms of epilepsy. The work is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Epilepsy Society, the Epilepsy Foundation and U-M.
The new findings differs from what other scientists have seen in mice — demonstrating the importance of studying cells made from human epilepsy patients. Because the cells came from patients, they contained the hallmark seen in most patients with Dravet syndrome: a new mutation in SCN1A, the gene that encodes the crucial sodium channel protein called Nav1.1. That mutation reduces the number of channels to half the normal number in patients’ brains.
"With this technique, we can study cells that closely resemble the patient’s own brain cells, without doing a brain biopsy," says senior author and team leader Jack M. Parent, M.D., professor of neurology at U-M and a researcher at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System. "It appears that the cells are overcompensating for the loss of channels due to the mutation. These patient-specific induced neurons hold great promise for modeling seizure disorders, and potentially screening medications."
With the new paper, Parent, postdoctoral fellow Yu Liu, Ph.D. and their collaborators Lori Isom, Ph.D., professor of Pharmacology and of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at U-M, and Miriam Meisler, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor of Human Genetics at U-M, report striking discoveries about what is happening at the cell level in the neurons of Dravet syndrome patients with a mutated SCN1A gene.
They also demonstrated that the effect is rooted in something that happens after function of the gene is reduced due to the mutation, though they don’t yet know how or why the nerve cells overcompensate for partial loss of this channel.
And, they found that the neurons didn’t show the telltale signs of hyperexcitability in the first few weeks after they were made — consistent with the fact that children with Dravet syndrome often don’t suffer their first seizures until they are several months old.
"In addition, reproduction of the hyperactivity of epileptic neurons in these cell cultures demonstrates that there is an intrinsic change in the neurons that does not depend on input from circuits in the brain," says co-author Meisler.
A platform for testing medications
Many Dravet patients don’t respond to current epilepsy medications, making the search for new options urgent. Their lives are constantly under threat by the risk of SUDEP, sudden unexplained death in epilepsy – and they never outgrow their condition, which delays their development and often requires round-the-clock care.
"Working with patient families, and translating our sodium channel research to a pediatric disease, has made our basic science work much more immediate and critical," says Isom, who serves on the scientific advisory board of the Dravet Syndrome Foundation along with Meisler. Parent, who co-directs U-M’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, was recently honored by the foundation.
The team is now working toward screening specific compounds for seizure-calming potential in Dravet syndrome, by testing their impact on the cells in the “epilepsy in a dish” model. The National Institutes of Health has made a library of drugs that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration available for researchers to use — potentially allowing older drugs to have a second life treating an entirely different disease from what they were initially intended.
Parent and his colleagues hope to identify drugs that affect certain aspects of sodium channels, to see if they can dampen the sodium currents and calm hyperexcitability. The team is exploring new techniques that can make this process faster, using microelectrodes and calcium-sensitive dyes. They also hope to use the model to study potential drugs for non-genetic forms of epilepsy.
Having a U-M team that includes experts in induced pluripotent stem cell biology, sodium channel physiology and epilepsy genetics expertise helps the research progress, Parent notes. “Epilepsy is a complicated brain network disease,” he says. “It takes team-based science to address it.”
Patients as part of the research team
The U-M team’s research wouldn’t be possible without the participation of patients with Dravet syndrome and other genetic forms of epilepsy, and their parents.
More than 100 of them have joined the International Ion Channel Epilepsy Patient Registry, which is based at U-M and Miami Children’s Hospital and co-funded by the Dravet Syndrome Foundation and the ICE Epilepsy Alliance. The researchers hope to be able to conduct clinical trials of potential drugs with participation by these patients and others.
Meanwhile, patients with other genetically based neurological diseases can also help U-M scientists discover more about their conditions, by taking part in other efforts to create induced neurons from skin cells. Parent and his team have worked with several other U-M faculty to create stem cell lines from skin cells provided by patients with other diseases including forms of ataxia and lysosmal storage disease.
Little less protein may be answer in neurodegenerative disorders
In some neurodegenerative diseases, and specifically in a devastating inherited condition called spinocerebellar ataxia 1 (SCA1), the answer may not be an “all-or-nothing,” said a collaboration of researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital and the University of Minnesota in a report that appears online in the journal Nature. The problem might be solved with just a little less.
"If you can only decrease the levels of ataxin-1 (the protein involved in SCA1) by 20 percent, you can reduce many symptoms of the disease," said Dr. Huda Zoghbi, professor of molecular and human genetics and pediatrics at BCM and director of the Neurological Research Institute. She is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
Her long-time colleague Dr. Harry Orr, director of the University of Minnesota Institute for Translational Neuroscience, echoed that sentiment: “Perhaps, if you decrease the levels of the protein, you will decrease the severity of the disease.” In this report, the laboratories of Zoghbi, Dr. Juan Botas, also of BCM and the Neurological Researcher Institute, Dr. Thomas Westbrook, assistant professor of molecular and human genetics at BCM, and Orr identified a molecular pathway in the cell (RAS/MAPK/MSK1) with components that can be modulated slightly to reduce the levels of defective ataxin-1, the protein that causes disease in patients with the disorder.
Spinocerebellar ataxia 1 occurs when the ataxin-1 gene is mutated, with three letters of the DNA alphabet repeating many, many times. The abnormal protein that results cannot fold correctly and piles up in the cell, eventually killing it. As with many neurodegenerative disorders, the process can take over a decade. A person usually does not develop symptoms of this form of ataxia until he or she is 30 years old or older. The person develops gait problems, eventually loses the ability to speak and function and dies. Zoghbi and Orr teamed to find the gene associated with the disorder in 1993. Their work on the disease has spanned 20 years.
Totally eliminating the protein would not work. Mice that lack the gene have problems with learning and memory, indicating that ataxin-1 plays a role in those activities. Reducing the levels of ataxin-1 does not cure the disease, but it can significantly delay onset.
A Collaborative Innovation Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute enabled Zoghbi to put together the team that could screen for the genes or the gene pathway that could be manipulated to result in less ataxin-1.
"Harry and I had studied the disease and we had animal models. Botas, professor of molecular and human genetics at BCM, had a fruit fly model and Dr. Westbrook had a nice technology that enabled us to monitor ataxin-1 levels."
They began with a screen for genes that could affect the levels of ataxin-1 produced in the cell, said Dr. Ismail Al-Ramahi, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Botas. Dr. Jeehye Park, a post-doctoral fellow in Zoghbi’s laboratory, and Al-Ramahi are co-first authors of the report. Park and her colleagues carried out the screen in human cell lines and Al-Ramahi and his colleagues carried out the screen in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster).
The screen in human cells focused on forms of enzymes called kinases because they are susceptible to the effects of drugs. Using a special technique called RNA silencing, they targeted each known human kinase. At the same, Botas and Al-Ramahi screened kinase genes in fruit flies with a form of SCA1. When the two laboratories compared results, they found 10 genes in common that when inhibited could reduce the levels of ataxin-1 as well as the toxicity associated with it. The genes were part of the RAS/MAPK/MSKI signaling cascade within the cell.
Then the researchers focused on one protein in this pathway called MSK1 and found that when its levels were decreased in mice that were laboratory models of SCA1, the levels of ataxin-1 dropped and the animals improved. That was the final experiment that proved that reducing levels of the protein could stave off the disease.
"We want to look for more pathways," said Zoghbi. If they find more pathways, they may be able to reduce toxicity. "If you have a pain and you take acetaminophen all the time, you have a risk of toxicity. Similarly, if you took a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory all the time, you would have another toxicity. If you alternate between them, there is less toxicity. If we hit only one pathway with a big inhibition, we risk some toxicity. If we find two or three pathways and hit each only a little, the rest of the body should not be hurt. Each little hit should help us reduce ataxin-1 by a respectable amount."
"I think what is novel about this paper is the integration of the screen in cells that was done in Huda’s lab and the screen in fruit flies done in our lab to look for targets for genes about which we knew nothing ahead of time," said Botas.
While the finding in spinocerebellar ataxia 1 is exciting, its potential application in other diseases is even more provocative.
"Now that we know that it works with ataxin-1, we can revisit many proteins whose levels drive neurodegeneration in sporadic and inherited diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and other neurological disorders," said Zoghbi. "This is a pilot study and the results from it are as important as a new pathway in neurodegenerative disease research."
"These are diseases that take a long time to develop," said Park. "Most Alzheimer’s occurs after the age of 85. If we could delay it until age 95, that would be very helpful."
"This is getting us really close, not only for SCA1, but I think it’s going to be a guidepost for work on a lot of other neurodegenerative diseases," said Orr. "It sets us a beautiful research strategy to get at that goal."
(Source: bcm.edu)
New subtype of ataxia identified
The finding opens the door for presymptomatic diagnostics and genetic counselling for patients and it is the first step in identifying the cause and developing therapies
(Image: Antony Gormley)
Researchers from the Germans Trias i Pujol Health Sciences Research Institute Foundation (IGTP), the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), and the Sant Joan de Déu de Martorell Hospital, has identified a new subtype of ataxia, a rare disease without treatment that causes atrophy in the cerebellum and affects around 1.5 million people in the world. The results have been published online on April 29 in the journal JAMA Neurology.
The cause of ataxia is a diverse genetic alteration. For this reason it is classified in subtypes. The new subtype identified described by the researchers has been called SCA37. The study has found this subtype in members of the same family living in Barcelona, Huelva and Madrid and Salamanca (Spain). The finding will allow in the medium term that these families and all who suffer the genetic alteration identified will have personalized therapies and diagnostics prior to the development of the disease. The study was funded by La Marató de TV3 (the Catalan public TV) in 2009, dedicated to rare diseases.
The cerebellum is a part of the brain located behind the brain that, among other functions, coordinates the movements of the human body. When it is atrophied, movement disorders appear, and when the ataxia evolves, the patients suffer frequent falls and swallowing problems. Progressively, they end up needing a wheelchair. Until now, there have been identified more than 30 different subtypes of ataxia, the first of which was described in 1993 by Dr. Antoni Matill, head of the Neurogenetics Unit, IGTP, and Dr. Victor Volpini, head of the Center for Molecular Genetic Diagnosis at IDIBELL.
The publication of this paper has been possible thanks to the collaboration of the Hospital de Sant Pau, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Pitie-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.
Particular eye movements
The first symptoms of ataxia may develop during the childhood or adult stage, depending on the subtype. The SCA37 subtype, the first cases of which were identified by Carme Serrano, neurologist at the Sant Joan de Deu Hospital, Martorell (Barcelona), is expressed at 48 years on average. One of the features of SCA37 subtype is the difficulty for vertical eye movements. Besides the patients identified in Spain by Dr. Serrano and Germans Trias and IDIBELL researchers, there are evidence of the existence of more people affected with this subtype of ataxia in France, Holland and Britain, and for this reason it seems to be a quite prevalent subtype of ataxia in Europe.
All SCA37 patients have a common genetic alteration in the portion 32 of the short arm of chromosome 1, wherein there are a hundred genes. Currently, researchers are sequencing it with new generation technologies to find the specific mutation that causes ataxia. When it is found it will be possible to make an accurate diagnosis in family members who do not yet have developed symptoms. Also, it will be possible to investigate the biological mechanisms that cause ataxia in order to develop and implement personalized therapies, with drugs or stem cells therapy.
(Source: eurekalert.org)
Dysfunction in cerebellar Calcium channel causes motor disorders and epilepsy
One ion channel, many diseases
A dysfunction of a certain Calcium channel, the so called P/Q-type channel, in neurons of the cerebellum is sufficient to cause different motor diseases as well as a special type of epilepsy. This is reported by the research team of Dr. Melanie Mark and Prof. Dr. Stefan Herlitze from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. They investigated mice that lacked the ion channel of the P/Q-type in the modulatory input neurons of the cerebellum. “We expect that our results will contribute to the development of treatments for in particular children and young adults suffering from absence epilepsy”, Melanie Mark says. The research team from the Department of General Zoology and Neurobiology reports in the “Journal of Neuroscience”.
P/Q-type channel defects cause a range of diseases
“One of the main challenging questions in neurobiology related to brain disease is in which neuronal circuit or cell-type the diseases originate,” Melanie Mark says. The Bochum researchers aimed at answering this question for certain motor disorders that are caused by cerebellar dysfunction. More specifically, they investigated potential causes of motor incoordination, also known as ataxia, and motor seizures, i.e., dyskinesia. In a previous study in 2011, the researchers showed that a certain Calcium channel type, called P/Q-type channel, in cerebellar neurons can be the origin of the diseases. The channel is expressed throughout the brain, and mutations in this channel cause migraines, different forms of epilepsy, dyskinesia, and ataxia in humans.
Disturbing cerebellar output is sufficient to cause different diseases
“Surprisingly, we found in 2011 that the loss of P/Q-type channels, specifically in the sole output pathway of the cerebellar cortex, the Purkinje cells, not only leads to ataxia and dyskinesia, but also to a disease often occurring in children and young adults, absence epilepsy,” Dr. Mark says. The research team thus hypothesized that disturbing the output signals of the cerebellum is sufficient to cause the major disease phenotypes associated with the P/Q-type channel. In other words, P/Q-type channel mutations in the cerebellum alone can elicit a range of diseases, even when the same channels in other brain regions are intact.
Disturbing the input to the cerebellum has similar effects as disturbing the output
Mark’s team has now found further evidence for this hypothesis. In the present study, the biologists did not disturb the output signals, i.e., the Purkinje cells, directly, but rather the input to these cells. The Purkinje cells are modulated by signals from other neurons, amongst others from the granule cells. “This modulatory input to the Purkinje cells is important for the proper communication between neurons in the cerebellum,” Melanie Mark explains. In mice, the researchers disturbed the input signals by genetically altering the granule cells so that they did not express the P/Q-type channel. Like disturbing the cerebellar output in the 2011 study, this manipulation resulted in ataxia, dyskinesia, and absence epilepsy. “The results provide additional evidence that the cerebellum is involved in initiating and/or propagating neurological deficits”, Mark sums up. “They also provide an animal model for identifying the specific pathways and molecules in the cerebellum responsible for causing these human diseases.”
(Source: alphagalileo.org)
New structural insight into neurodegenerative disease
A research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) released their results on the structure and molecular details of the neurodegenerative disease-associated protein Ataxin-1. Mutations in Ataxin-1 cause the neurological disease, Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 1 (SCA1), which is characterized by a loss of muscular coordination and balance (ataxia), as is seen in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s diseases.
SCA1-causing mutations in the ATAXIN1 gene alter the length of a glutamine stretch in the Ataxin-1 protein. The research team provides the first structural insight into the complex formation of ATAXIN-1 with its binding partner, Capicua (CIC). The team, led by Professor Ji-Joon Song from the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST, solved the structure of Ataxin-1 and CIC complex in atomic level revealing molecular details of the interaction between Ataxin-1 and CIC.
Professor Song explained his recent research work, “We are able to see the intricate process of complex formation and reconfiguration of the two proteins when they interact with each other. Our work, we expect, will provide a new therapeutic target to modulate SCA1 neurodegenerative disease.”
Understanding structural and molecular details of proteins at the atomic level will help researchers to track the molecular pathogenesis of the disease and, ultimately, design targeted therapies or treatments for patients, rather than just relieving the symptoms of diseases.
Professor Song’s research paper, entitled “Structural Basis of Protein Complex Formation and Reconfiguration by Polyglutamine Disease Protein ATAXIN-1 and Capicua,” will be published in the March 15th issue of Genes & Development
New Genetic Disorder of Balance and Cognition Discovered
The family of disorders known as ataxia can impair speech, balance and coordination, and have varying levels of severity. Scientists from the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh have identified a new member of this group of conditions which is connected to ‘Lincoln ataxia’, so called because it was first found in the relatives of US President Abraham Lincoln. The results are published in the journal PLOS Genetics.
Lincoln ataxia affects the cerebellum, a crucial part of the brain controlling movement and balance. It is caused by an alteration in the gene for ‘beta-III spectrin’, a protein found in the cerebellum. Each person has two copies of a gene, and in Lincoln ataxia there is an alteration in only one of the two copies. Unexpectedly, the British scientists have found cases of alterations in both copies of the gene, causing a novel disorder called ‘SPARCA1’ which is associated with a severe childhood ataxia and cognitive impairment.
This is the first report of any spectrin-related disorder where both copies of the gene are faulty and has given important insights into both Lincoln ataxia and SPARCA1.
The work was done using whole genome sequencing, a relatively new technology which allows all of a person’s genetics information to be analysed. In addition to sequencing work, the scientists characterized the condition using mice lacking beta-III spectrin. This analysis, combined with previous work, links the protein defect to changes in nerve-cell shape in the brain areas associated with cognition and coordinated movements. The work shows that loss of normal beta-III spectrin function underlies both SPARCA 1 and Lincoln ataxia, but a greater loss of beta-III spectrin is required before cognition problems arise.
DNA detectives track down nerve disorder cause
Better diagnosis and treatment of a crippling inherited nerve disorder may be just around the corner thanks to an international team that spanned Asia, Europe and the United States. The team had been hunting DNA strands for the cause of the inherited nerve disorder known as spinocerebellar ataxia, or SCA. The disease causes progressive loss of balance, muscle control and ability to walk. Thanks to their diligence and detective work they have discovered the disease gene in a region of chromosome 1 where another group from the Netherlands had previously shown linkage with a form of SCA called SCA19, and the Taiwanese group on the new paper had shown similar linkage in a family for a form of the disease that was then called SCA22. The international team, from France, Japan, Taiwan and the USA have published their discovery in the Annals of Neurology. The Dutch group has also published results in the same issue of the journal.
Their paper reveals that mutations in the gene KCND3 were found in six families in Asia, Europe and the United States that have been haunted by SCA. Their results will allow for a better understanding of why nerves in the brain’s movement-controlling centre die, and how new DNA mapping techniques can find the causes of other diseases that run in families.
Margit Burmeister, Ph.D., a geneticist at University of Michigan Health System (U-M), helped lead the work and stressed that the gene could not have been found without a great deal of DNA detective work and the cooperation of the families who volunteered to let researchers map all the DNA of multiple members of their family tree. ‘We combined traditional genetic linkage analysis in families with inherited diseases with whole exome sequencing of an individual’s DNA, allowing us to narrow down and ultimately identify the mutation,’ she says. ‘This new type of approach has already resulted in many new gene identifications, and will bring in many more.’
The gene is very important as it manages the production of a protein that allows nerve cells to ‘talk’ to one another through the flow of potassium. Pinpointing its role as a cause of ataxia will now allow more people with ataxia to learn the exact cause of their disease, give a very specific target for new treatments, and perhaps allow the families to stop the disease from affecting future generations.
U-M neurologist Vikram Shakkottai, M.D., Ph.D., an ataxia specialist and co-author on the paper, also notes that the new genetic information will help patients find out the specific cause of their disease. He and his colleagues are already working to find drugs that might alter potassium flow, and provide a treatment for a group of diseases that currently are only treated with supportive care such as physical activity and balance training as patients deteriorate. ‘Many of the families who come to our clinic for treatment don’t have a recognised genetic mutation, so it’s important to find new genetic mutations to explain their symptoms,’ says Shakkottai. ‘But at the same time, this research is helping us understand a common mechanism of nerve cell dysfunction in progressive and non-progressive disease.’
Their findings however are not restricted to just ataxia. The researchers were also able to show that when KCND3 is mutated, it causes poor communication between nerve cells in the cerebellum as well as the death of those cells. This discovery could aid research on other neurological disorders involving balance and movement.
The Dutch team, that also published its findings about KCND3 at the same time, studied families in the Netherlands and found that mutations on the gene are responsible for SCA19, the cause of which had up until now been a mystery. ‘In other words, mutations in this gene are not uncommon and present all over the world,’ says Burmeister. ‘This means that in the future, this gene should be tested for mutations as part of a clinical genetic test panel for patients with ataxia symptoms. Because a generation can be skipped, it may even be relevant in some sporadic cases - those where the patient isn’t aware of any other family members with a similar disease.’
Source: Cordis News
Gypsy study unravels a novel ataxia gene
17 August 2012
A WA study of an isolated population of Eastern European Gypsies known as “Bowlmakers” has unlocked clues about a serious developmental disease - congenital cerebellar ataxia.
Professor Luba Kalaydjieva and Dr Dimitar Azmanov, from The University of Western Australia, say the discovery of an important genetic mutation is likely to inspire other scientific work around the world.
The result of their research for the UWA-affiliated Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (WAIMR) was published online today in the prestigious American Journal of Human Genetics.
It involved working collaboratively with other Australian and European researchers to discover mutations within a gene which has never before been linked to this form of heredity ataxia in humans.
Ataxias are a large group of neurodegenerative disorders that affect the ability to maintain balance, and learn and maintain motor skills. While many genes have already been implicated in hereditary ataxias, understanding their molecular basis is far from complete. New knowledge will help the understanding of normal brain development and function, and the mechanisms of degeneration.
"Gypsies are a founder population," Professor Kalaydjieva said. "They are derived from a small number of ancestors and have remained relatively isolated from surrounding populations. The Bowlmakers - known for their wooden handicrafts such as bowls and spoons - were an ideal group to study because they are a younger sub-isolate, showing limited genetic diversity.
"We studied a novel form of ataxia in 3 families in this ethnic group. Clinical and brain-imaging investigations were done in Bulgaria, in collaboration with radiologists from Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital, and were followed-up by genetic studies at WAIMR and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI), Melbourne.
"Signs of ataxia were detected in early infancy when motor skills like crawling and rolling over did not develop. The affected individuals presented with global developmental delay, ataxia and intellectual deficit. MRI scans showed signs of degeneration of the cerebellum, which is part of the brain controlling motor and learning skills. Overall, the life expectancy is not decreased but the quality of life is severely affected.
"The parents of the affected individuals did not present with any clinical symptoms of the ataxia, suggesting recessive inheritance," Dr Azmanov said. "Our genetic studies showed unique changes in the gene encoding metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 (GRM1), which is important for the normal development of the cerbellar cortex. The mutations inherited by all affected individuals from their unaffected carrier parents dramatically altered the structure of the GRM1 receptor.”
Professor Kalaydjieva said the exact pathogenetic mechanisms leading to the clinical manifestations and cerebellar degeneration are yet to be explained and that this opens novel research avenues for the wider scientific community. ”It also remains to be seen if other ataxia patients around the world carry mutations in GRM1,” she said.