Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.1.6.1 (sulfatase)
 3,205 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

In research on congenital metabolic disorders, a biochemist can choose between the theoretical and the practical approach. The diagnosis of metabolic diseases relies on 1) the determination of the presence of metabolites under normal conditions that are direct substrates of the defective enzyme (e.g., the Gm2 ganglioside in the brain tissue of a patient with Tay-Sachs disease); 2) the determination of the lack or insufficiency of the direct product of the defective enzyme (e.g., aryl sulfatase A in the cells of patients with metachromatic leukodystrophy), hormone (hypothyroidism), or receptor (congenital hypercholesterolemia); 3) determination of substance whose reduction was established by experimentation, but the cause of the decrease is not known (ceruloplasmin in Wilson's disease); and 4) DNA analysis. Metabolic impairment of genetic origin is not treatable. The disease can be prevented by 1) removing the inappropriate metabolite (e.g., copper accumulation can be avoided by giving penicillamine or zinc salts); 2) limiting those substances in the critical phase of childhood that are components of the defective enzyme (e.g. gluten reduction in colic and protein in phenylketonuria); 3) supplementing the insufficient metabolite (e.g., phosphate in hypophosphatemia by sound for 12 hours a day); 4) protecting the patients (e.g. from light in porphyria); and 5) treatment by substances (giving coagulation factor VIII in hemophilia and thyroid hormones in hypothyroidism). There is a dilemma in subjecting patients to a diagnosis of progression to Huntington's chorea 20 years in advance or informing them about the high risk of hereditary disease for the next child (25% for the recessive and 50% for the dominant mode). Ethical committees have usually opted for a recommendation of selective abortion in clear-cut cases. Increasingly refined diagnostic methods have magnified the responsibility of the biochemist.
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PMID:[Prenatal diagnosis: a chance? risk? dilemma?]. 209 55