Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an inherited neuro-muscular disease characterized by specific degeneration of spinal cord anterior horn cells and subsequent muscle atrophy. Survival motor neuron ( SMN ), located on chromosome 5q13, is the SMA-determining gene. In the nucleus, SMN is present in large foci called gems, the function of which is not yet known, while cytoplasmic SMN has been implic...

BACKGROUND In spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), weakness, decreased endurance, and fatigue limit mobility. Scales have been developed to measure function across the wide spectrum of disease severity. However, these scales typically are observer dependent, and scores are based on sums across Likert-scaled items. The Six-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) is an objective, easily administered, and standardized ...

Pulmonary complications including chest infections, atelectasis, pulmonary hypoplasia and ventilatory failure are the leading cause of death in the muscular dystrophies and atrophies. Ventilatory insufficiency is virtually inevitable in Duchenne muscular dystrophy and type 1 spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), but more variable in limb-girdle, congenital, and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. ...

spinal muscular atrophy (sma) is an autosomal recessive neuromuscular disorder caused by homozygous deletion of the survival motor neuron gene 1 (smn1) in more than 90% of patients. according to the age of onset and severity of the disease, sma is classified into three groups: type i (severe), type ii (intermediate) and type iii (mild). as reported, the smn2 gene, centromeric copy gene, showed ...

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disease characterized by the selective death of lower motor neurons in the brain stem and spinal cord. SMA is caused by mutations in the survival motor neuron 1 gene (SMN1), leading to the reduced expression of the full-length SMN protein. microRNAs (miRNAs) are small RNAs that regulate post-transcriptional gene expressio...

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a neuromuscular disease caused by low levels of SMN protein, primarily affecting lower motor neurons. Recent evidence from SMA and related conditions suggests that glial cells can influence disease severity. Here, we investigated the role of glial cells in the peripheral nervous system by creating SMA mice selectively overexpressing SMN in myelinating Schwann ce...

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a neuromuscular disorder caused by reduced levels of the survival motor neuron (SMN) protein. Here we show that the proteasome inhibitor, bortezomib, increases SMN in cultured cells and in peripheral tissues of SMA model mice. Bortezomib-treated animals had improved motor function, which was associated with reduced spinal cord and muscle pathology and improved n...

Background: Preimplantation genetic diagnosis - PGD is currently an established procedure allowing genetic research of oocyte or embryo before implantation to the uterus. Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a neurodegenerative disorder, being the second most common lethal autosomal recessive disease in Caucasians, after cystic fibrosis. There are three clinically different types of which type I (W...

Objective. To determine whether there is variability in the attitudes and practices of physicians regarding treatment of respiratory failure in children with spinal muscular atrophy type I (SMA type I) and, if so, whether this variation is associated with professional training. Methods. This was a descriptive, cross-sectional survey mailed to a randomly selected subset of the Child Neurology So...

The lethal congenital contracture syndrome (LCCS) is an autosomal recessive syndrome (McKusick 253310) leading to perinatal death owing to early onset degeneration of the anterior horn motor neurones of the spinal cord. The neuropathological findings in the LCCS closely resemble those of spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Since all the three types of SMA have been localised to the same gene locus o...