Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Genomic deletion within GLDC is a major cause of non-ketotic hyperglycinaemia
  1. Junko Kanno1,2,
  2. Tim Hutchin1,2,
  3. Fumiaki Kamada1,2,
  4. Ayumi Narisawa1,2,
  5. Yoko Aoki1,2,
  6. Yoichi Matsubara1,2,
  7. Shigeo Kure1,2
  1. 1Department of Medical Genetics, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan
  2. 2Department of Clinical Chemistry, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Birmingham, UK
  1. Correspondence to:
 Dr S Kure
 Department of Medical Genetics, Tohoku University School of Medicine, 1-1 Seiryomachi, Aobaku, Sendai 980-8574, Japan; skure{at}mail.tains.tohoku.ac.jp

Abstract

Background: Non-ketotic hyperglycinaemia (NKH) is an inborn error of metabolism characterised by accumulation of glycine in body fluids and various neurological symptoms. NKH is caused by deficiency of the glycine cleavage multienzyme system with three specific components encoded by GLDC, AMT and GCSH. Most patients are deficient of the enzymatic activity of glycine decarboxylase, which is encoded by GLDC. Our recent study has suggested that there are a considerable number of GLDC mutations which are not identified by the standard exon-sequencing method.

Methods: A screening system for GLDC deletions by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) has been developed. Two distinct cohorts of patients with typical NKH were screened by this method: the first cohort consisted of 45 families with no identified AMT or GCSH mutations, and the second cohort was comprised of 20 patients from the UK who were not prescreened for AMT mutations.

Results:GLDC deletions were identified in 16 of 90 alleles (18%) in the first cohort and in 9 of 40 alleles (22.5%) in the second cohort. 14 different types of deletions of various lengths were identified, including one allele where all 25 exons were missing. Flanking sequences of interstitial deletions in five patients were determined, and Alu-mediated recombination was identified in three of five patients.

Conclusions:GLDC deletions are a significant cause of NKH, and the MLPA analysis is a valuable first-line screening for NKH genetic testing.

  • GCS, glycine cleavage system
  • MLPA, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification
  • NKH, non-ketotic hyperglycinaemia
  • PCR, polymerase chain reaction
  • SNP, single-nucleotide polymorphism
  • glycine cleavage system
  • multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification
  • GLDC deletion
  • Alu repeats
  • mutation spectrum

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Funding: This work was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Japan. Funding was also provided by the Robert Gaddie Memorial Fund and from the Tohoku University 21st COE Program “Comprehensive Research and Education Center for Planning of Drug Development and Clinical Evaluation”, Sendai, Japan.

  • Competing interests: None declared.

  • Electronic databases: NKH (GCE)-OMIM, 605899. GLDC-OMIM: 238300, GenBank: NT_008413.