Background: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a genetic motor neuron disease caused by mutations in the SMN1 (Survival Motor Neuron) gene, which leads to hypotonia, muscle weakness and respiratory involvement. Its most severe form, SMA type 1, starts before 6 months of life has high mortality due ventilatory failure. Nusinersen, first approved treatment for SMA, an antisense oligonucleotide intr...

Proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a neurodegenerative disease caused by low levels of the survival motor neuron (SMN) protein. In humans, SMN1 and SMN2 encode the SMN protein. In SMA patients, the SMN1 gene is lost and the remaining SMN2 gene only partially compensates. Mediated by a C>T nucleotide transition in SMN2, the inefficient recognition of exon 7 by the splicing machinery resul...

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is caused by the loss of functional survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) protein. This ubiquitously expressed protein is a component of a novel complex immunodetected in both the cytoplasm and the nucleus, which is associated with complexes involved in mRNA splicing, ribosome biogenesis and transcription. Here, we study a mutant protein corresponding to the N-terminal ha...

BACKGROUND Clinical trials of drugs that increase SMN protein levels in vitro are currently under way in patients with spinal muscular atrophy. OBJECTIVE To develop and validate measures of SMN mRNA and protein in peripheral blood and to establish baseline SMN levels in a cohort of controls, carriers, and patients of known genotype, which could be used to follow response to treatment. METHO...

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), which is caused by inactivating mutations in the survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene, is characterized by loss of lower motor neurons in the spinal cord. The gene encoding SMN is very highly conserved in evolution, allowing the disease to be modeled in a range of species. The similarities in anatomy and physiology to the human neuromuscular system, coupled with th...

BACKGROUND Autosomal recessive spinal muscle atrophy (SMA) is characterized by the loss of α motor neurons resulting in progressive muscle loss and respiratory failure. SMA is one of the most common inherited causes of infant death with a carrier frequency of 1 in 50 and a calculated prevalence of about 1 in 11,000 live births in the US. The low amount of functional survival motor neuron (SMN) ...

There exist two SMN (survival motor neuron) genes in humans, the result of a 500 kb duplication in chromosome 5q13. Deletions/mutations in the SMN1 gene are responsible for childhood spinal muscular atrophy, an autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder. While the SMN1 and SMN2 genes are not functionally equivalent, up-regulation of the SMN2 gene represents an important therapeutic target. ...

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a common autosomal recessive neuromuscular disorder caused by mutations in the survival motor neuron (SMN1) gene, affecting approximately 1 in 10,000 live births. The homozygous absence of SMN1 exon 7 has been observed in the majority of patients and is being utilized as a reliable and sensitive SMA diagnostic test. Treatment and prevention of SMA are complement...

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a recessive disease caused by mutations in the SMN1 gene, which encodes the protein survival motor neuron (SMN), whose absence dramatically affects the survival of motor neurons. In humans, the severity of the disease is lessened by the presence of a gene copy, SMN2. SMN2 differs from SMN1 by a C-to-T transition in exon 7, which modifies pre-mRNA splicing and pr...

spinal muscular atrophy (sma) is an autosomal recessive neuromuscular disorder characterized by degeneration of spinal cord anterior horn cells, leading to muscular atrophy. sma is clinically classified into three sub-groups based on the age of onset and severity. the majority of patients with sma have homozygous deletions of exons 7 and 8 of the survival motor neuron (smn) gene. the purpose of ...