Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0039483 (giant cell arteritis)
 3,204 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD) is an adult-onset autosomal dominant myopathy found world-wide, but with the highest incidence in French-Canadians. Short GCG expansions in the poly(A) binding protein 2 (PABP2) gene were identified recently as the molecular basis for OPMD in French-Canadians. All French-Canadian cases of OPMD have been traced to a single founder couple [Bouchard, 1997: Neuromuscul Disord 7(Suppl):S5-S11]. Cultural links between French-Canadians and Cajuns suggest that this same founder couple may have transmitted the OPMD mutation to Cajuns as well. To determine if OPMD patients from Louisiana share a founder effect with French-Canadian families, we collected blood samples and muscle biopsies from several Cajuns with OPMD for mutation and linkage studies. We found a unique 'GCA GCG GCG' insertion mutation in Cajuns. Consistent with these sequence data, we identified a disease haplotype in our Cajun families that is different from the ancestral haplotype defined in French-Canadians. These data prove that different founders introduced the PABP2 mutation to Cajuns and French-Canadians and lend support to emerging genealogical data suggesting that French-Canadians and Cajuns represent distinct immigrant groups from France.
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PMID:Unique PABP2 mutations in "Cajuns" suggest multiple founders of oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy in populations with French ancestry. 1050 91

Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD) is an autosomal dominant late-onset neuromuscular degenerative disease characterised by proximal muscle weakness, ptosis and swallowing difficulty. The causative genetic abnormality is an expansion consisting of 2-7 additional base triplets in a repeat sequence in exon 1 of the PABPN1 (PABP2) gene and results in an increase in length of the polyalanine tract in the PABPN1 protein from 10 to 12-17 residues. The expansions are stable through meiosis and mitosis suggesting a different mechanism of mutation from that of most other triplet repeat mutations. Most reports describe OPMD expansions as consisting of multiples of a GCG sequence. However, some studies have detected GCA interspersions. We have analysed 86 OPMD patients with a PABPN1 gene expansion, including three compound heterozygotes, and have identified 13 different types of expansion mutation, six of which contain GCA and GCG and almost all of which are consistent with a mutational mechanism of unequal recombination.
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PMID:Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD): analysis of the PABPN1 gene expansion sequence in 86 patients reveals 13 different expansion types and further evidence for unequal recombination as the mutational mechanism. 1564 84