Individually, lysosomal storage disorders are rare genetic diseases. However, as a group, they are relatively common and represent an important health problem in Australia.

Cord blood from unrelated donors appears to be an excellent source of stem cells for transplantation in patients with Hurler's syndrome. Sustained engraftment can be achieved without total-body irradiation. Cord-blood transplantation favorably altered the natural history of Hurler's syndrome and thus may be important to consider in young children with this form of the disease.

. The structure of N-acetylgalactosamine-4-sulfatase reveals that residues conserved amongst the sulfatase family are involved in stabilizing the calcium ion and the sulfate ester in the active site. This suggests an archetypal fold for the family of sulfatases. A catalytic role is proposed for the post-translationally modified highly conserved cysteine residue. Despite a lack of any previously detectable sequence similarity to any protein of known structure, the large sulfatase domain that contains the active site closely resembles that of alkaline phosphatase: the calcium ion in sulfatase superposes on one of the zinc ions in alkaline phosphatase and the sulfate ester of Cys91 superposes on the phosphate ion found in the active site of alkaline phosphatase.

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Iduronate 2-sulfatase (IDS, EC 3.1.6.13) is required for the lysosomal degradation of heparan sulfate and dermatan sulfate. Mutations causing IDS deficiency in humans result in the lysosomal storage of these glycosaminoglycans and Hunter syndrome, an X chromosome-linked disease. We have isolated and sequenced a 2.3-kilobase cDNA clone coding for the entire sequence of human IDS. Analysis of the deduced 550-amino acid IDS precursor sequence indicates that IDS has a 25-amino acid amino-terminal signal sequence, followed by 8 amino acids that are removed from the proprotein. An internal proteolytic cleavage occurs to produce the mature IDS present in human liver shown to contain a 42-kDa polypeptide N-terminal to a 14-kDa polypeptide. The IDS sequence has strong sequence homology with other sulfatases (such as sea urchin arylsulfatase, human arylsulfatases A, B, and C, and human glucosamine 6-sulfatase), suggesting that the sulfatases comprise an evolutionarily related family of genes that arose by gene duplication and divergent evolution. The arylsulfatases have a greater homology with each other than with the nonarylsulfatases (IDS and glucosamine 6-sulfatase). The IDS cDNA detected RNA species of 5.7, 5.4, 2.1, and 1.4 kilobases in human placental RNA and revealed structural alterations and gross deletions of the IDS gene in many of the clinically severe Hunter syndrome patients studied.Iduronate 2-sulfatase (IDS, EC 3.1.6.13) acts as an exosulfatase in lysosomes to hydrolyze the C2-sulfate ester bond from non-reducing-terminal iduronic acid residues in the glycosaminoglycans heparan sulfate and dermatan sulfate (1). IDS is one of a family of at least nine sulfatases that hydrolyze sulfate esters in human cells. They are all lysosomal enzymes that act on sulfated monosaccharide residues in a variety of complex substrates with the exception of microsomal steroid sulfatase (or arylsulfatase C), which acts on sulfated 3,8-hydroxysteroids (1, 2). Each sulfatase displays absolute substrate specificity, making the sulfatase family an attractive model to investigate the molecular requirements for substrate binding and the catalysis of sulfate ester hydrolysis.A deficiency in the activity of IDS in humans leads to the lysosomal accumulation of heparan sulfate and dermatan sulfate fragments and their excretion in urine (1). This storage results in the clinical disorder Hunter syndrome (mucopolysaccharidosis type II, MPS-II) in which patients may present with variable phenotypes from severe mental retardation, skeletal deformities, and stiff joints to a relatively mild course (1). It has been postulated that this clinical heterogeneity reflects different mutations at the IDS locus affecting enzyme expression, stability, or function. MPS-II is one of the most common mucopolysaccharidoses and is the only one that is X chromosome-linked (1).We have reported (3) the purification of IDS from human liver and other tissues and in this communication we report the nucleotide sequence for a full-length cDNA clone for IDSt f...