Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0162671 (MELAS)
 587 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

We examined the clinical and biochemical features of 27 cases with acute myoglobinuria who had been suspected of having metabolic myopathies. The systematic biochemical studies included the measurements of 13 glycolytic enzymes, mitochondrial respiratory chain enzymes, carnitine palmitoyltransferase (CPT) and 5 enzymes of fatty acid beta-oxidation. Enzyme defects were found in 9 patients using muscle biopsy specimens: phosphorylase deficiency in 3, CPT deficiency in 4 and phosphoglycerate kinase deficiency in 2. One patient was diagnosed as MELAS (mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes) with the histopathological examination and clinical data. A suspicion of beta-oxidation disorder was entertained in some patients of which the activities were about 50% of control means. However, no evidence to substantiate its significance as the enzyme defects was obtained from our data. Sixteen of 17 undiagnosed cases could be divided into two groups according to precipitating factors as follows: one had exercise as the factors and the other had infection. These groups also showed some differences in clinical features. In the infection group, myoglobinuria tended to progress more rapidly and was occasionally followed by acute renal failure. And some cases had additional associated conditions such as mental retardation or epilepsy. On the other hand, the exercise group had only myopathic symptoms. The difference in these clinical features between the two groups suggested that they had the different pathogenic mechanisms respectively.
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PMID:[Clinical and biochemical analysis of 27 patients with myoglobinuria of unknown causes]. 778 Dec 10

Mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) syndrome is most commonly caused by the A3243G mutation of mitochondrial DNA. The capacity to utilize fatty acid or glucose as a fuel source and how such dynamic switches of metabolic fuel preferences and transcriptional modulation of adaptive mechanism in response to energy deficiency in MELAS syndrome have not been fully elucidated. The fibroblasts from patients with MELAS syndrome demonstrated a remarkable deficiency of electron transport chain complexes I and IV, an impaired cellular biogenesis under glucose deprivation, and a decreased ATP synthesis. In situ analysis of the bioenergetic properties of MELAS cells demonstrated an attenuated fatty acid oxidation that concomitantly occurred with impaired mitochondrial respiration, while energy production was mostly dependent on glycolysis. Furthermore, the transcriptional modulation was mediated by the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling pathway, which activated its downstream modulators leading to a subsequent increase in glycolytic flux through activation of pyruvate dehydrogenase. In contrast, the activities of carnitine palmitoyltransferase for fatty acid oxidation and acetyl-CoA carboxylase-1 for fatty acid synthesis were reduced and transcriptional regulation factors for biogenesis were not altered. These results provide novel information that MELAS cells lack the adaptive mechanism to switch fuel source from glucose to fatty acid, as glycolysis rates increase in response to energy deficiency. The aberrant secondary cellular responses to disrupted metabolic homeostasis mediated by AMPK signaling pathway may contribute to the development of the clinical phenotype.
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PMID:Inflexibility of AMPK-mediated metabolic reprogramming in mitochondrial disease. 2908 32