Additive effect of frequent polymorphism and rare synonymous variant alters splicing in twin patients with Niemann-Pick disease type C.

Niemann-Pick disease type C (NP-C) (OMIM#257220) is a rare lysosomal storage disorder caused by pathogenic variants in either the NPC1 or NPC2 genes. It manifests with a wide spectrum of clinical symptoms and variable age of onset. We studied the impact of the frequent polymorphic variant c.

Oxysterol/chitotriosidase based selective screening for Niemann-Pick type C in infantile cholestasis syndrome patients.

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.