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Glycogen storage disease type 0 (GSD 0) is an autosomal recessive disorder of glycogen metabolism caused by mutations in the GYS2 gene manifesting in infancy or early childhood and characterized by ketotic hypoglycemia after prolonged fasting, and postprandial hyperglycemia and hyperlactatemia. GSD 0 is a rare form of hepatic glycogen storage disease with less than 30 reported patients in the literature so far.

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Background Niemann-Pick disease type C (NP-C) is an inherited neurodegenerative disease (1 per 100 000 newborns) caused by NPC proteins impairment that leads to unesterified cholesterol accumulation in late endosomal/lysosomal compartments. To date the NP-C diagnostics is usually based on cholesterol detection in fibroblasts using an invasive and time-consuming Filipin staining and we need more arguments to widely introduce oxysterols as a biomarkers in NP-C. Methods Insofar as NP-C represents about 8% of all infant cholestases, in this prospective observational study we tried to re-assess the specificity plasma oxysterol and chitotriosidase as a biochemical screening markers of NP-C in children with cholestasis syndrome of unknown origin. For 108 patients (aged from 2 weeks to 7 years) the levels of cholestane-3β,5α,6β-triol (C-triol) and chitotriosidase (ChT) were measured. For patients with elevated C-triol and/or ChT the NPC1 and NPC2 genes were Sanger-sequenced and 47 additional genes (from the custom liver damage panel) were NGS-sequenced. Results Increased C-triol level (> 50 ng/ml) was detected in 4 (of 108) infants with cholestasis syndrome of unknown origin, with following molecular genetic NP-C diagnosis for one patient. Plasma cholesterol significantly correlates with C-triol ( p < 0.05). NGS of high C-triol infants identified three patients with mutations in JAG1 (Alagille syndrome) and ABCB11 (Byler disease) genes. Increased ChT activity was detected in 8 (of 108) patients with various aetiologies, including NP-C, Byler disease and biliary atresia. Conclusion Combined analysis of ChT activity and C-triol levels is an effective method for identifying NP-C.

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