Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0026850 (muscular dystrophy)
 5,870 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Plectin is a high molecular weight protein that serves as a versatile cytoskeletal cross-linker molecule. Mutations of the human plectin gene have recently been identified to cause the autosomal recessive disorder epidermolysis bullosa simplex with muscular dystrophy (EBS-MD). A subgroup of EBS-MD patients display signs of a neurodegenerative disorder suggesting that the expression of defective plectin may also interfere with the structural and functional integrity of the human central nervous system. However, the expression pattern of plectin in the human brain is still unknown. We therefore analyzed the immunohistochemical distribution of plectin in normal hippocampal specimens obtained at autopsy and in neocortical and hippocampal tissue of patients who had undergone epilepsy surgery. In general, plectin-immunoreactive cells were identified as capillary endothelia and astrocytes. A striking feature seen in all specimens was the accentuated plectin immunoreactivity of astrocytic end feet abutting on blood vessels and on the pial surface. Furthermore, the analysis of hippocampal tissue of epilepsy patients with Ammon's horn sclerosis (AHS) revealed a strong plectin labeling of reactive astrocytes. The latter finding suggests that the up-regulation of plectin, which parallels the increase of glial fibrillary acidic protein, may be a general feature of reactive astroglia. The predominant expression of plectin at pia/glia and endothelia/glia interfaces in the human brain indicates that plectin may have an integral role in the structural organization of the blood-brain barrier and the leptomeninges.
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PMID:Plectin in the human central nervous system: predominant expression at pia/glia and endothelia/glia interfaces. 975 51

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed on a 36-year-old woman with muscular dystrophy, intractable epilepsy, and bilateral temporo-occipital lissencephaly. We observed islands of task-specific activation in lissencephalic cortex homologous to visual association regions activated in normal subjects on the same visual confrontation naming task. This result suggests lissencephalic cortex may develop specific functional connections with other brain regions.
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PMID:Functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence for task-specific activation of developmentally abnormal visual association cortex. 1021 77

Children with merosin-deficient congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD) have striking white matter changes on T-2 weighted brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). There have been occasional cases with structural abnormalities, mainly involving the occipital cortex. We report our brain imaging findings in 14 children with merosin-deficient CMD. Ten cases had a severe reduction or absence of merosin on immunocytochemistry and four cases had partial reduction. All 14 cases had white matter changes, which appeared after the first 6 months of life and persisted with time. The changes were diffuse and the oldest child scanned (14 years) also showed involvement of the U fibres. Five children with total absence of merosin also had structural abnormalities. One child had moderate mental retardation and epilepsy, mainly characterised by complex partial seizures, with atypical absences, which had been difficult to treat. Brain MRI showed marked occipital agyria and pontocerebellar hypoplasia. The gyral pattern of the rest of the brain looked normal. The four other cases, all with normal intelligence, also had cerebellar hypoplasia with variable involvement of the pons. They did not, however, have neuronal migration defects. It is recognised that several forms of congenital muscular dystrophy, namely Fukuyama CMD, muscle-eye-brain disease and Walker-Warburg syndrome, have structural brain abnormalities and associated severe mental retardation. Our cases demonstrate that a range of structural malformations can also be found in a significant number of children with merosin-deficient CMD.
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PMID:Merosin-deficient congenital muscular dystrophy: the spectrum of brain involvement on magnetic resonance imaging. 1022 Aug 62

Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies are X-linked allelic disorders in which the association of central nervous system dysfunction, typically in the form of mental retardation, is a well recognized feature. They are both due to mutations in the dystrophin gene, whose corresponding protein products are expressed both in the muscle and central nervous system. We have observed an increased frequency of epilepsy in children with Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy attending our clinic. Out of 254 boys with this condition (201 Duchenne and 53 Becker), eight children, four in the Duchenne and four in the Becker group, had a confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy (cumulative incidence 3.14%, with a subgroup incidence of 1.99% in the Duchenne and 7.54% in the Becker group). Statistical analysis indicated that only the incidence of epilepsy in Becker muscular dystrophy was significant (p < 0.007). Our data suggests that epilepsy may be a rare associated feature in children with muscular dystrophy secondary to dystrophin deficiency.
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PMID:Epilepsy in Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies. 1072 5

A heterogeneous group of patients with congenital muscular dystrophy associated with clinical or radiologic central nervous system involvement other than the severe classic form with merosin deficiency, muscle-eye-brain disease, and Walker-Warburg syndrome is described. A probable hereditary or familial occurrence could be suggested in all patients. One merosin-positive patient presented severe motor incapacity and cerebral atrophy without any clinical manifestation of central nervous system involvement. A second patient, also merosin-positive, had moderate motor and mental handicap, and epilepsy with no changes in neuroimaging. A third patient, found to have partial merosin deficiency by muscle biopsy, manifested severe psychomotor retardation and cerebral atrophy with foci of abnormal white-matter signal on magnetic resonance imaging. Finally, two merosin-positive siblings with microcephaly, mental retardation, and an incapacitating progressive neuromuscular course, exhibited cataracts without defects of neuronal migration or brain malformation. This report emphasizes the broad clinical spectrum and heterogeneity of merosin-positive congenital muscular dystrophy with associated central nervous system involvement, and illustrates the importance of further studies on clinical, immunohistochemical, and genetic grounds for identifying new subsets of congenital muscular dystrophy.
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PMID:Heterogeneity of classic congenital muscular dystrophy with involvement of the central nervous system: report of five atypical cases. 1075 73

We report a pair of siblings with non-Fukuyama type, merosin-positive congenital muscular dystrophy, born to unrelated parents. Patient 1 was a 16-year-old girl with myopathy, cardiomyopathy, severe mental retardation and epilepsy. Patient 2 was a younger brother of patient 1, a 10-year-old boy with myopathy, severe mental retardation and epilepsy. Their serum selenium levels were decreased to 25 micrograms/l and 55 micrograms/l, respectively (normal 97-147 micrograms/l). Their muscle biopsy findings were similar to those seen in selenium deficient myopathy, showing abnormal mitochondrial distribution and giant mitochondria. After oral administration of selenium for 3 months, their gait disturbance apparently improved, which was confirmed by a gait analysis system. Why their gait improved remain unclear, but a defect in selenium metabolism may play a role in the development of congenital muscular dystrophy and mental retardation.
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PMID:[Two sibling patients with non-Fukuyama type congenital muscular dystrophy with low serum selenium levels--therapeutic effects of oral selenium administration]. 1091 76

Leukodystrophy with macrocephaly as the main features of infantile neurodegenerative disease are characteristics of Canavan's disease, L-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria, type I glutaric aciduria, and Alexander's disease. Also occasionally described are occidental congenital muscular dystrophy, G(M)2-gangliosidosis, metachromatic leukodystrophy, Krabbe's disease, and mucopolysaccharidosis. Since 1995, over 60 patients with a new syndrome, vacuolating megalencephalic leukoencephalopathy, have been described. The syndrome is characterized by macrocephaly, a slowly progressive clinical course of ataxia, spastic paraparesis, and seizure disorder with relatively spared cognition. Unlike other leukodystrophies with macrocephaly (except Alexander's disease), no metabolic marker has been found. We describe a similar group of 12 patients from two different Jewish ethnic origins in whom consanguinity is prominent. These patients have neuroimaging features and magnetic resonance spectroscopy findings indicating that there is an initial increase in white-matter edema with subsequent cystic formation. Consistent with loss of tissue in these areas, brain metabolites are reduced. The familial incidence in this group of patients is suggestive of autosomal-recessive inheritance.
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PMID:Vacuolating megalencephalic leukoencephalopathy in 12 Israeli patients. 1129 32

Pediatric neurologic diseases are often associated with different kinds of sleep disruption (mainly insomnia, less frequently hypersomnia or parasomnias). Due to the key-role of sleep for development, the effort to ameliorate sleep patterns in these children could have important prognostic benefits. Study of sleep architecture and organization in neurologic disorders could lead to a better comprehension of the pathogenesis and a better treatment of the disorders. This article focuses on the following specific neurologic diseases: nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy and abnormal motor behaviors of epileptic origin, evaluating differential diagnosis with parasomnias; achondroplasia, confirming the crucial role of craniofacial deformity in determining sleep-disordered breathing; neuromuscular diseases, mainly Duchenne's muscular dystrophy and myotonic dystrophy; cerebral palsy, evaluating either the features of sleep architecture and the importance of the respiratory problems associated; headaches, confirming the strict relationships with sleep in terms of neurochemical and neurobehavioral substrates; and finally a review on the effectiveness of melatonin for sleep problems in children with neurologic syndromes and mental retardation, blindness, and epilepsy.
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PMID:Sleep disorders in children with neurologic diseases. 1176 88

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is an autosomal dominant form of muscular dystrophy characterized by progressive weakness and wasting of the facial, shoulder-girdle and upper arm muscles. The gene locus for FSHD is mapped to the subtelomeric region of chromosome 4q35, in which smaller EcoRI fragments (10 to 33 kb) are detected in most families by Southern blot analysis. The purpose of this study is to clarify the frequency and clinical/genetical features of early-onset FSHD in Japanese patients with 4q35-FSHD. In a series of 231 patients from 145 families with 4q35-FSHD, there were 31 patients (13.4%; male: female = 12:19) of 29 families (20%) with early-onset FSHD, 16 of whom were sporadic. Genetic analysis revealed that they had significantly smaller sized EcoRI fragments (range, 10 to 23 kb; mean 14.1 kb) than the other patients (range, 12 to 33 kb; mean 19.6 kb) (p < 0.001, U-test). All patients with the smallest EcoRI fragments (10 to 11 kb) were sporadic cases with early onset. Mental retardation (10/11) and epilepsy (4/11) was often observed in them, but not in the other patients. In early-onset FSHD, tongue muscle involvement (8/31) and swallowing disturbance (2/31), which has been regarded as exclusion criteria of FSHD, were also present. The onset of gait disturbance was significantly earlier (mean age = 11.9) in early-onset FSHD compared to the other group (mean age = 28.7). All patients with early-onset FSHD showed gait disturbance before 28 years of age. In conclusion, Japanese early-onset FSHD patients tend to have large gene deletions on chromosome 4q35, and show severe and variable phenotypes.
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PMID:[Clinical and genetical features of Japanese early-onset facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy]. 1213 83

A 20-year-old man with mild myopathy, external ophthalmoparesis, epilepsy, and diffuse white matter hyperintensity in the brain on magnetic resonance imaging had partial merosin deficiency in muscle and absent merosin in the endoneurium. Motor and sensory nerve conduction velocities were slow. Nerve biopsy showed reduction of large myelinated fibers, short internodes, enlarged nodes, excessive variability of myelin thickness, tomacula, and uncompacted myelin, but no evidence of segmental demyelination, naked axons, or onion bulbs. Thus, in congenital muscular dystrophy, merosin expression may be dissociated in different tissues, and the neuropathy is sensory-motor and due to abnormal myelinogenesis.
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PMID:Dysmyelinating sensory-motor neuropathy in merosin-deficient congenital muscular dystrophy. 1266 Oct 54


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