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news.An international research collaboration led by Mayo Clinic has identified a new gene involved in causing the inherited kidney disorder Meckel-Gruber syndrome. The discovery may lead to new treatments for a number of genetic diseases.
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Children with Meckel-Gruber syndrome (MKS) have central nervous system deformities as well as abnormal cysts in their kidneys, and usually die shortly after birth.
The discovery of the gene is of immediate importance to MKS families who may now have their blood screened for the defect and seek genetic counseling.
The finding is also important for advancing understanding of what goes wrong in common birth defects, such as neural tube defects, as well as for related disorders such as more common forms of polycystic kidney disease (PKD). PKD accounts for more than 5% of end-stage kidney disease in the US and Europe.
“This gene has immediate relevance for a small number of families, but the broader implications are important for the understanding they bring of how cysts develop in the kidney,” explained Dr Peter Harris, the Mayo Clinic nephrology researcher who led the research team. “There is a kind of common linkage among these diseases. Our hope is that this new finding will aid us to devise new treatments for a broad category of disabling disease.”
In addition to Mayo Clinic, the collaboration involved researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, and the University of Birmingham, England. The scientists reported their findings in the journal Nature Genetics.
Knowing the identity of one key gene involved in MKS is a first step to understanding the disorder and eventually devising therapies to blunt its effects. Treatments are being developed for the more common forms of polycystic kidney disease.