Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0024523 (malabsorption)
 7,319 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Subtle cobalamin deficiency states, where low serum cobalamin levels are not accompanied by megaloblastic anemia or malabsorption of free cobalamin, often display metabolic evidence of cellular depletion as shown by the deoxyuridine suppression test. However, the suppression test abnormalities are usually mild and are sometimes atypical; moreover, their response to cobalamin therapy has never been documented. Four patients with this subtle defect, at least three of whom had food-cobalamin malabsorption, were therefore tested before and after cobalamin treatment. Each patient had low serum cobalamin levels but did not have megaloblastic anemia, and all but one had normal serum levels of methylmalonic acid and total homocysteine. Two patients had mildly but typically cobalamin-deficient deoxyuridine suppression test results (baseline values 15.7% and 12.8%; normal less than 8.5%). The other two patients had normal or borderline baseline values (5.4% and 8.9%) that became abnormal on incubation with methyl tetrahydrofolate (16.1% and 12.3%), a pattern previously noted in subtle acquired and hereditary cobalamin deficiencies. After 6 months of cobalamin therapy, the deoxyuridine suppression test abnormalities reversed in all four patients. These findings show that the mild deoxyuridine suppression test stigmata of subtle cobalamin deficiency respond to therapy and thus represent true metabolic deficiency; the unusual abnormality induced in vitro by added methyl tetrahydrofolate responds as well, indicating that it, too, represents metabolic cobalamin deficiency. The findings provide further proof that subtle cobalamin deficiency often exists even when megaloblastic anemia and malabsorption of free cobalamin are lacking, and that the deoxyuridine suppression test can be a reliable tool for its identification.
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PMID:Reversal by cobalamin therapy of minimal defects in the deoxyuridine suppression test in patients without anemia: further evidence for a subtle metabolic cobalamin deficiency. 154 74

Patients with phenylalanine hydroxylase deficiency show increased concentrations of biopterins and neopterins, and reduced concentrations of serotonin and catecholamines, when phenylalanine concentrations are raised. The pterin rise reflects increased synthesis of dihydroneopterin and tetrahydrobiopterin, and the amine fall a reduction in amine synthesis due to inhibition by phenylalanine of tyrosine and tryptophan transport into neurones. The pterin and amine changes appear to be independent of each other and are present in the central nervous system as well as the periphery; they disappear when phenylalanine concentrations are reduced to normal. Patients with arginase deficiency show a similar amine disturbance but have normal pterin levels. The amine changes probably contribute neurological symptoms but pterin disturbance is not known to affect brain function. Patients with defective biopterin metabolism exhibit severely impaired amine synthesis due to tetrahydrobiopterin deficiency. Pterin concentrations vary with the site of the defect. Symptoms include profound hypokinesis and other features of basal ganglia disease. Neither symptoms nor amine changes are relieved by controlling phenylalanine concentrations. Patients with dihydropteridine reductase (DHPR) deficiency accumulate dihydrobiopterins and develop secondary folate deficiency which resembles that occurring in patients with defective 5,10-methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase activity. The latter disorder is also associated with Parkinsonism and defective amine and pterin turnover in the central nervous system, and a demyelinating illness occurs in both disorders. In DHPR deficiency cerebral calcification may develop in a similar distribution to that seen in congenital folate malabsorption and methotrexate toxicity. Symptoms are ameliorated by therapy with 5-formyltetrahydrofolate but exacerbated by folic acid.
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PMID:Pteridines and mono-amines: relevance to neurological damage. 354 Sep 26

Deficient activity of an enzyme can result from a defect in the conversion of the vitamin to a co-enzyme as well from an abnormal apo-enzyme or disturbed binding of coenzyme to enzyme. Conversion of dietary vitamin to intracellular active co-enzyme can be complex and require many physiological and biochemical processes including stomach release of bound vitamin, intestinal uptake, carriers/transport, blood transport, cellular uptake, intracellular release and intracellular compartmentalisation. Disorders of malabsorption (food cobalamin malabsorption, intrinsic factor deficiency and abnormal enterocyte cobalamin processing) and transport proteins (transcobalamin II deficiency, R-binder deficiency) mostly lead to disturbed function of the two cobalamin requiring enzymes, methylmalonyl CoA mutase and methionine synthase. Defects of early steps of intracellular cobalamin (cblF, cbl C/D) result in marked deficiencies of both cobalamin co-enzymes and homocystinuria combined with methylmalonic aciduria. Defective synthesis of adenosyl cobalamin in the cbl A/B defects leads to methylmalonyl CoA mutase. Isolated methionine synthase deficiency is also classified as a cobalamin disorder due to its associated deficient formation of methylcobalamin. Folate disorders include methylene-tetrahydrofolate reductase deficiency and glutamate formimino-transferase deficiency. In addition a hereditary disorder of intestinal folate transport has been described. Less well established are disorders of dihydrofolate reductase, methenyl-tetrahydrofolate cyclohydrolase, and defects of cellular folate uptake.
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PMID:Genetic defects of folate and cobalamin metabolism. 958 28