These results indicate that tyrosine hydroxylase in the nigrostriatal dopamine neurons may be most sensitive to tetrahydrobiopterin deficiency causing dystonia.
The phenotypes of four allelic mutations identified in the sodium channel gene Scn8a range from ataxia and muscle weakness through severe dystonia and progressive paralysis, indicating that human mutations in this gene could be associated with a variety of clinical syndromes.
The data also indicate that this dystonia mutation (DYT7) is the predominant cause of IFD, at least in this area of Northwest Germany, and that its location can be narrowed from a 30- to a 6-centimorgan region close to marker D18S1098.
Future study of normal and mutant torsin A, as well as the identification of other primary torsion dystonia genes, should help elucidate the mechanisms underlying dystonia.
The MF pattern was present in DYT1 carriers with and without clinical manifestations and persisted in DYT1dystonia patients in whom involuntary movements were suppressed by sleep.
We conducted genomic DNA sequencing of the GCH gene in two patients (Cases 1 and 2) manifesting generalized dystonia responsive to levodopa and severe developmental motor delay.
Concerning the pathoetiology of the association of bullous pemphigoid and Shy-Drager syndrome, we discuss a sequence similarity between BPAG1 and dystonin, a candidate gene for dystonia musculorum.
Mutational analysis of most of the coding region and splice junctions of TOR1A and TOR1B did not reveal additional mutations in typical early onset cases lacking the GAG deletion (N = 17), in dystonic individuals with apparent homozygosity in the 9q34 chromosomal region (N = 5), or in a representative Ashkenazic Jewish individual with late onset dystonia, who shared a common haplotype in the 9q34 region with other late onset individuals in this ethnic group.
To evaluate the contribution of these genetic loci to other families with familial "non-DYT1" dystonia five large families with dystonia were studied using genetic markers spanning the DYT6 and DYT7 regions.
To evaluate the contribution of these genetic loci to other families with familial "non-DYT1" dystonia five large families with dystonia were studied using genetic markers spanning the DYT6 and DYT7 regions.
That torsinA mRNA is enriched in several basal ganglia nuclei, including the dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra, is intriguing since it suggests that DYT1dystonia may be associated with a dysfunction in dopamine transmission.
Mutations of GCH result in reductions in GCH activity, BH4, TH activity, and dopamine, causing either recessively inherited GCH deficiency or dominantly inherited hereditary progressive dystonia [HPD; Segawa's disease; also called dopa-responsive dystonia (DRD)].4.
The phenotype of AR-DRD with the Leu205Pro mutation in the TH gene, which produces a severe decrease in TH activity to 1.5% of that of the wild type, was severe, not dystonia/Segawa's syndrome, but early-onset parkinsonism.