Glutaryl-CoA dehydrogenase (GCDH) deficiency is a rare inborn disorder of L-lysine, L-hydroxylysine, and L-tryptophan metabolism complicated by striatal damage during acute encephalopathic crises. Three decades after its description, the natural history and how to treat this disorder are still incompletely understood. To study which variables influenced the outcome, we conducted an international cross-sectional study in 35 metabolic centers. Our main outcome measures were onset and neurologic sequelae of acute encephalopathic crises. A total of 279 patients (160 male, 119 female) were included who were diagnosed clinically after clinical presentation (n ϭ 218) or presymptomatically by neonatal screening (n ϭ 23), high-risk screening (n ϭ 24), or macrocephaly (n ϭ 14). Most symptomatic patients (n ϭ 185) had encephalopathic crises, characteristically resulting in bilateral striatal damage and dystonia, secondary complications, and reduced life expectancy. First crises usually occurred during infancy (95% by age 2 y); the oldest age at which a repeat crisis was reported was 70 mo. In a few patients, neurologic disease developed without a reported crisis. Differences in the diagnostic criteria and therapeutic protocols for patients with GCDH deficiency resulted in a huge variability in the outcome worldwide. Recursive partitioning demonstrated that timely diagnosis in neurologically asymptomatic patients followed by treatment with L-carnitine and a lysine-restricted diet was the best predictor of good outcome, whereas treatment efficacy was low in patients diagnosed after the onset of neurologic disease. Notably, the biochemical phenotype did not predict the clinical phenotype. Our study proves GCDH deficiency to be a treatable disorder and a good candidate for neonatal screening.

Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) deficiency is an autosomal recessive disorder with heterogenous phenotypic manifestations and genetic background. We describe seven patients from five independent families with an isolated myopathic phenotype of CoQ10 deficiency. The clinical, histological and biochemical presentation of our patients was very homogenous. All patients presented with exercise intolerance, fatigue, proximal myopathy and high serum CK. Muscle histology showed lipid accumulation and subtle signs of mitochondrial myopathy. Biochemical measurement of muscle homogenates showed severely decreased activities of respiratory chain complexes I and II + III, while complex IV (COX) was moderately decreased. CoQ10 was significantly decreased in the skeletal muscle of all patients. Tandem mass spectrometry detected multiple acyl-CoA deficiency, leading to the analysis of the electron-transferring-flavoprotein dehydrogenase (ETFDH) gene, previously shown to result in another metabolic disorder, glutaric aciduria type II (GAII). All of our patients carried autosomal recessive mutations in ETFDH, suggesting that ETFDH deficiency leads to a secondary CoQ10 deficiency. Our results indicate that the late-onset form of GAII and the myopathic form of CoQ10 deficiency are allelic diseases. Since this condition is treatable, correct diagnosis is of the utmost importance and should be considered both in children and in adults. We suggest to give patients both CoQ10 and riboflavin supplementation, especially for long-term treatment.

Classical citrullinemia (CTLN1), a rare autosomal recessive disorder, is caused by mutations of the argininosuccinate synthetase (ASS) gene, localized on chromosome 9q34.1. ASS functions as a rate-limiting enzyme in the urea cycle. Previously, we identified 32 mutations in the ASS gene of CTLN1 patients mainly in Japan and the United States, and to date 34 different mutations have been described in 50 families worldwide. In the present study, we report ASS mutations detected in 35 additional CTLN1 families from 11 countries. By analyzing the entire coding sequence and the intron-exon boundaries of the ASS gene using RT-PCR and/or genomic DNA-PCR, we have identified 16 novel mutations (two different 1-bp deletions, a 67-bp insertion, and 13 missense) and have detected 12 known mutations. Altogether, 50 different mutations (seven deletion, three splice site, one duplication, two nonsense, and 37 missense) in 85 CTLN1 families were identified. On the basis of primary sequence comparisons with the crystal structure of E. coli ASS protein, it may be concluded that any of the 37 missense mutations found at 30 different positions led to structural and functional impairments of the human ASS protein. It has been found that three mutations are particularly frequent: IVS6-2A>G in 23 families (Japan: 20 and Korea: three), G390R in 18 families (Turkey: six, U.S.: five, Spain: three, Israel: one, Austria: one, Canada: one, and Bolivia: one), and R304W in 10 families (Japan: nine and Turkey: one). Most mutations of the ASS gene are "private" and are distributed throughout the gene, except for exons 5 and 12-14. It seems that the clinical course of the patients with truncated mutations or the G390R mutation is early-onset/severe. The phenotype of the patients with certain missense mutations (G362V or W179R) is more late-onset/mild. Eight patients with R86H, A118T, R265H, or K310R mutations were adult/late-onset and four of them showed severe symptoms during pregnancy or postpartum. However, it is still difficult to prove the genotype-phenotype correlation, because many patients were compound heterozygotes (with two different mutations), lived in different environments at the time of diagnosis, and/or had several treatment regimes or various knowledge of the disease.

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