Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:4.6.1.2 (guanylate cyclase)
 8,497 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA, MIM 204,000), the earliest and most severe form of inherited retinopathy, accounts for at least 5% of all inherited retinal dystrophies. This autosomal recessive condition is usually recognized at birth or during the first months of life in an infant with total blindness or greatly impaired vision, normal fundus and extinguished electroretinogram (ERG). Nystagmus (pendular type) and characteristic eye poking are frequently observed in the first months of life (digito-ocular sign of Franceschetti). Hypermetropia and keratoconus frequently develop in the course of the disease. The observation by Waardenburg of normal children born to affected parents supports the genetic heterogeneity of LCA. Until now, however, little was known about the pathophysiology of the disease, but LCA is usually regarded as the consequence of either impaired development of photoreceptors or extremely early degeneration of cells that have developed normally. We have recently mapped a gene for LCA to chromosome 17p13.1 (LCA1) by homozygosity mapping in consanguineous families of North African origin and provided evidence of genetic heterogeneity in our sample, as LCA1 accounted for 8/15 LCA families in our series. Here, we report two missense mutations (F589S) and two frameshift mutations (nt 460 del C, nt 693 del C) of the retinal guanylate cyclase (RETGC, GDB symbol GUC2D) gene in four unrelated LCA1 probands of North African ancestry and ascribe LCA1 to an impaired production of cGMP in the retina, with permanent closure of cGMP-gated cation channels.
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PMID:Retinal-specific guanylate cyclase gene mutations in Leber's congenital amaurosis. 894 27

Patients carrying mutations in the retinal guanylate cyclase (GUCY2D) gene were reported to be constantly affected with a particular form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) defined as a "congenital stationary cone-rod dystrophy with high hypermetropia, panretinal degeneration and highly reduced visual acuity". We report here, the study of two patients affected with different retinal disorder: a typical GUCY2D-LCA phenotype and early-onset severe retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Unexpectedly, they gave birth to an infant suffering from LCA. The genetic study in the family allowed to explain the disease in the infant by showing that the GUCY2D-LCA disease was accounted for by compound heterozygosity for two severe GUCY2D mutations (c.3043+4A>T, c.2943delG) while the early-onset severe RP resulted from homozygosity for a 4 bp insertion in the same gene, despite the sound phenotypic differences (c.3236insACCA). Interestingly, this last mutation is excepted to result in a 28 amino acid elongation of the protein contrary to all GUCY2D mutations accounting for LCA which are expected to be null alleles. This report gives support to the existence of exceptional GUCY2D mutations accounting for a milder and different phenotype compared to the typical GUCY2D congenital stationary cone-rod dystrophy.
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PMID:A novel mutation in the GUCY2D gene responsible for an early onset severe RP different from the usual GUCY2D-LCA phenotype. 1564 14