0000000000353903
AUTHOR
Gerhard Kurlemann
PRRT2 mutations are the major cause of benign familial infantile seizures.
Mutations in PRRT2 have been described in paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia (PKD) and infantile convulsions with choreoathetosis (PKD with infantile seizures), and recently also in some families with benign familial infantile seizures (BFIS) alone. We analyzed PRRT2 in 49 families and three sporadic cases with BFIS only of Italian, German, Turkish, and Japanese origin and identified the previously described mutation c.649dupC in an unstable series of nine cytosines to occur in 39 of our families and one sporadic case (77% of index cases). Furthermore, three novel mutations were found in three other families, whereas 17% of our index cases did not show PRRT2 mutations, including a large fami…
Inflammatory Characteristics of Monocytes from Pediatric Patients with Tuberous Sclerosis.
Objective Therapeutic options for the tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) syndrome showed varying outcomes. Malfunctional tsc1 / tsc2 genes leave mTOR uninhibited, a positive downstream modulator of the innate proinflammatory immune system, which has not yet been described in pediatric patients with TSC. Methods Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) gene expression levels of monocytes after cultivation with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or with LPS + mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, patients with TSC ( n = 16) were compared with healthy subjects ( n = 20). Results Compared with monocytes from healthy controls, LPS showed a more prominent gene expression pattern in patients with TSC (CCL24, CXCL10, IL…