SCIENTIFIC BACKGROUND

AR

Category:

Scientific Background

Spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy is an X-linked, neurodegenerative disease. Clinically, those affected show proximal muscle weakness and atrophy as well as fasciculations that mainly affect the perioral muscles. Other frequently occurring characteristics are intention tremor, muscle cramps, difficulty swallowing, peripheral androgen resistance with reduced fertility and gynecomastia. The symptoms usually begin between the age of 30 and 40 and progress slowly. Due to the X-linked inheritance, the disease only affects men. Women who are heterozygous carriers of the causative gene alteration do not have symptoms but can transmit the disease.

 

The disease is caused by degeneration of spinal and bulbar α-motor-neurons, due to a CAG triplet expansion in the translated region of the androgen receptor gene (AR gene). While a sequence of 12-35 triplets is found in normal individuals, those affected carry 38-53 CAG copies. This results in the incorporation of an excessively long sequence of glutamine residues into the androgen receptor protein. The protein loses its original structure and thus its actual function in the spinal and bulbar localized motor neurons.

 

References

Breza et Koutsis 2019, J Neurol 266:565 / Manzano et al. 2018, J Neurol Neurosurg Psych 89:808 / Katsuno 2010, Adv Exp Med Biol 685:64-74 / Finsterer 2009, Eur J Neurol 16:556 / Sperfeld et al. 2005, Neurology 64:753 / Drjager et al. 2002, J Clin Endocr Metab 87:3893 / Sperfeld et al. 2002, Arch Neurol 59:1921 / Kreß et al. 1993, Med Genetik 5:269 / La Spada et al. 1991, Nature 352:77

GENES

AR

ASSOCIATED TESTS

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