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Biomedical subjects

S Autio

Publications and source records attributed to S Autio.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Psychological obstacles to genetic education.

Medical knowledge and psychic reactions were studied in families affected by a progressive autosomal recessive disease, aspartylglucosaminuria. The information was given mainly in simple but written form. The subjects appeared to accept little correct information. Conversation did not appear to be of much value and intense emotional reactions were provoked. Attitudes towards the disease and patients could be divided into three groups: rational (30%), defensive (50%), and hostile (20%). The importance of early and repeated personal communication is emphasized.

Adult

Salla disease: a new lysosomal storage disorder with disturbed sialic acid metabolism.

Salla disease is a lysosomal storage disorder associated with increased urinary excretion of free sialic acid. The main clinical features in 34 patients were severe psychomotor retardation of early onset, ataxia, athetosis, rigidity, spasticity, and impaired speech. Growth retardation, thick calvarium, and exotropia were present in about half the patients. The amplitude of EEG decreased progressively with increasing age. Life span appears to be normal; the age range of the patients was 3 to 63 years. Genealogic studies suggest an autosomal mode of inheritance. A thin-layer method is described for the detection of increased urinary free sialic acid excretion. The basic defect is so far unknown.

Adolescent

The clinical course of mannosidosis.

The clinical course of mannosidosis was studied in eight patients. The age at onset of symptoms varied from 6 months to 3 years. The first symptom was usually delayed development of speech or motor or mental functions and was often accompanied by recurrent infections. All the patients were mentally retarded, with slightly coarse facial features, poor ability to speak, sensorineural hearing loss and dysostosis multiplex. Ataxia was seen in all but one case, appearing in childhood at the same time as the hearing loss. Follow-up observations suggested gradual impairment of mental and motor functions and speech with age. Other findings were stunted growth in adults, and vacuolated lymphocytes in the peripheral blood.

Bone Development

Increased urinary excretion of free N-acetylneuraminic acid in thirteen patients with Salla disease.

Thirteen severely retarded patients with Salla disease, a new type of lysosomal storage disorder, have been studied biochemically. All patients excreted approximately ten times more free sialic acid than normal individuals. The isolated sialic acid was characterized by paper chromatography, thin-layer chromatography, optical rotation, 13C and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry of its permethylated derivative. The results clearly indicated that the excreted sialic acid was identical to N-acetylneuraminic acid. The main sialylated trisaccharide present in the urine of the patients was identified as 3'-sialyllactose by sugar and methylation analysis. The excreted amounts were found to be within normal range.

Carbohydrate Metabolism, Inborn Errors

"Salla disease": a new lysosomal storage disorder.

Severe mental retardation, coarse facial features, clumsiness, and speech failure were common findings in three brothers and one female third-cousin of a family from northern Finland. All the patients had vacuolated lymphocytes in peripheral blood smears, and electron microscopy of fresh skin biopsy specimens showed abundant cytoplasmic inclusions in various types of cells of the skin. Eight lysosomal hydrolases were assayed in peripheral blood lymphocytes and cultured skin fibroblasts, but no enzyme deficiency was detected. Urinary excretion of mucopolysaccharides, amino acids, glycoasparagines, and oligosaccharides was normal. Clinical findings, course of the disease, and the presence of cytoplasmic inclusions, indicating lysosomal storage phenomenon, suggest that the patients suffer from a genetic lysosomal storage disorder not described earlier. The eponym "Salla disease" was introduced, referring to the geographically restricted area where the family resides.

Adult

Effect of acetylated derivatives of some sympathomimetic amines on the isolated auricles and tracheal chain of the guinea-pig.

The effects of acetylation of sympathomimetic amines, tyramine, amphetamine, ephedrine, phenylephrine, orciprenaline, and salbutamol, and their O- and N-acetyl derivatives and the effects of reserpine or physostigmine pretreatment on the isolated auricles and tracheal chain of guinea-pigs have been studied. All the parent drugs relaxed the tracheal chain and had a positive inotropic and chronotropic effect on the isolated auricles; only amphetamine, on the contrary, contracted the tracheal chain. O-acetylation of these sympathomimetic amines generally decreased less chronotropic than iontropic action on the isolated auricles. O-acetylation of tyramine however: actually increased the positive chronotropic activity of drug. As a rule, O-acetylation also decreased the beta-adrenergic effect of these compounds on the tracheal chain, but not so markedly as on the isolated auricles. N-acetylation generally abolished the adrenergic effects of these sympathomimetic amines on the isolated auricles and decreased those effects on the tracheal preparation. N,O-triacetylation of salbutamol abolished the stimulating effect of the parent drug on the auricles but increased the relaxant activity on the trachea. Physostigmine antagonized the effects of O-acetyltyramine and O-triacetylorciprenaline but not those of tyramine and orciprenaline on the trachea preparation. It is concluded that among the sympathomimetic amines acetylation may be utilized for the development of specific bronchodilators and O-acetylation for inducing drug latentiation.

Acetylation

Enzymatic diagnosis and carrier detection of aspartylglucosaminuria using blood samples.

The activity of the glycoprotein degrading lysosomal hydrolase, 4-L-aspartylglycosylamine amido hydrolase (AAD Gase, EC.3.5.1.26), was measured in plasma, buffy coat leukocytes, and separated lymphocytes (Ficoll separation) from 16 patients with aspartylglucosaminuria (AGU), 29 obligate heterozygotes, and 30 control subjects. In lymphocytes the AGU patients had unmeasurable or minimal AAD Gase activity with a mean of 3.9 U. The obligate heterozygotes showed AAD Gase activities ranging from 5 to 69 U with a mean of 34.1 U. Enzyme activities in the control group ranged from 91 to 243 U with a mean of 127.9 U, and were clearly separated from the values of the heterozygotes. In leukocytes the AGU patients had unmeasurable enzyme activity and obligate heterozygotes had enzyme levels closely similar to those in the lymphocytes from the same individuals. The AAD Gase activity in the leukocytes of the control group displayed a much wider variation than in the lymphocytes, ranging from 22 to 132 U with a mean of 70.7 U. In plasma the AGU patients had undetectable AAD Gase activity. The mean enzyme level of obligate heterozygotes was 72.2 U and that of control individuals 107.2 U, but the overlap between the groups was extensive. The results indicate that homozygous deficiency of AAD Gase, i.e., aspartylglucosaminuria can be reliably diagnosed using plasma, leukocytes, or separated lymphocytes. For carrier detection only separated lymphocytes allow a satisfactory differentiation between heterozygous and normal individuals. A group of 31 siblings of verified AGU cases and 11 children of identified carriers, whose spouses had normal AAD Gase activity, were investigated using the lymphocyte assay. The observed and expected frequencies (on the basis of Mendelian probabilities) were closely similar, suggesting that the lymphocyte assay can be used reliably for carrier detection.

Acetylglucosaminidase

Aspartylglycosaminuria: a generalized storage disease. Morphological and histochemical studies.

Aspartylglycosaminuria (AGU) is a hereditary metabolic disorder characterized by slowly progressive mental deterioration from infancy, urinary excretion of large amounts of aspartylglycosamine, and decreased activity of the lysosomal enzyme aspartylglcosamine amido hydrolase in various body tissues and fluids. The nature and distribution of the morphological and histochemical alterations in AUG are described in the light of the first AGU patient investigated post mortem and brain and liver. Most nerve cells and hepatocytes contained large vacuoles without any histochemically demonstrable lipid or carbohydrate material. Ultrastructural studies revealed numerous electron-lucent vaculoles, limited by a single, membrane, in the cytoplasm of these cells. In addition to evenly disperesed finely granular or reticular material the vacuoles contained small electron-opaque "lipid" droplets and polymorphic membraneous or granular aggregates. Similar vacuoles were also seen in a number of other cell types, particularly in the kupffer cells and brain macrophages, as well as in the capillary pericytes. Biochemical studies suggest that the principal storage material consists of aspartylglycosamine itself; glycoasparagines of higher molecular weight are present as only minor components. Correlated morphological and biochemical studies thus definitely establish that AGU is a generalized storage disorder. The condition is apparently due to decreased activity of aspartylglycosamine amido hydrolase, with accumulation of products of flycoprotein carabolism in cytoplasmic vacuoles in both epithelial and mesenchymal cells.

Adult

Prenatal diagnosis and fetal pathology of I-cell disease (mucolipidosis type II).

Increased activity of several lysosomal hydrolases was demonstrated in amniotic fluid from a fifteenth week pregnancy in which the fetus had I-cell disease. Cultured cells from amniotic fluid had a decreased activity of the same enzymes. The diagnosis of I-cell disease was later confirmed by enzyme assays in cell cultures of fetal skin and by morphologic studies of several tissues from the aborted fetus. Electron microscopic studies of the fetal tissues and cultured fibroblasts had large numbers of typical inclusions of I-cell disease, thus substantiating the diagnosis and intrauterine manifestation of the disease. The results indicate that prenatal diagnosis of I-cell disease is possible with enzyme assays of amniotic fluid and in cultures of fetal cells from the fluid. Enzyme studies of amniotic fluid can provide a preliminary diagnosis within a few hours, but it is suggested that the definitive diagnosis should be based on assays in cultured cells from amniotic fluid.

Acetylglucosaminidase

Mulibrey nanism: review of 23 cases of a new autosomal recessive syndrome.

Mulibrey (muscle, liver, brain, eye) nanism is probably an autosomal recessive condition characterized by progressive growth failure of prenatal onset, triangular face with hydrocephaloid skull, general thinness and muscular hypotonicity, peculiar voice, venous congestion caused by pericardial constriction, and pigment dispersion and yellowish dots in ocular fundi. Two thirds of the patients had cutaneous nevi flammei and one third cystic fibrous dysplasia of the tibia. Probably a substantial portion of the affected are lost by early abortion and others by infantile death. The physical capacity and life expectancy seem to vary depending on the degree of the cardiac affection.

Adolescent