SMN2 and NAIP gene dosages in Vietnamese patients with spinal muscular atrophy.

Background: The SMN1 gene is now recognized as a spinal muscular atrophy (SMA)-causing gene, while SMN2 and NAIP have been characterized as a modifying factor of the clinical severity of SMA. Gene dosage of SMN2 is associated with clinical severity of SMA. But the relationship between gene dosage of NAIP and clinical severity of SMA remains to be clarified, although complete deletion of NAIP is frequent in type I patients.

Co-occurrence of mutations in both dystrophin- and androgen-receptor genes is a novel cause of female Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked recessive disorder. Here, we report a novel mechanism for the occurrence of DMD in females. In a Vietnamese DMD girl, conventional PCR amplification analysis disclosed a deletion of exons 12-19 of the dystrophin gene on Xp21.

Deletion of the SMN1 and NAIP genes in Vietnamese patients with spinal muscular atrophy.

The SMN1 and NAIP genes are related to the development of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), which is characterized by degeneration of motor neurons leading to progressive muscular weakness and atrophy. The SMN1 gene is homozygously deleted in most SMA patients, and now recognized as a responsible gene for SMA. The NAIP gene is often deleted in the SMA patients with the severest form of SMA, and now considered to be a modifying factor of the severity of SMA.

Molecular genetic analyses of five Vietnamese patients with spinal muscular atrophy.

Most patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) have been reported to show homozygous deletion of the gene responsible for SMA, SMN1. However, whether SMA patients homozygous for the SMN1 deletion exist in Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, remains to be determined, because molecular genetic analyses of SMA patients from these countries have not been reported. In this preliminary study, we analyzed five Vietnamese SMA patients and found that SMN1 gene exons 7 and 8 were completely absent in one of them, a 6-month-old girl with hypotonic muscles.