Our data further enlarge the spectrum of mutations in SURF1 gene in patients with Leigh disease and cytochrome-c oxidase deficiency, contributing to better characterization of the clinical and neuroradiologic features of this group of patients for genotype-phenotype correlations.
Muscle samples from 21 patients who fulfilled the criteria of LS and SURF1 mutations (14 homozygotes and 7 heterozygotes of c.841delCT) were examined by light and electron microscopy.
Analysis of seven unrelated patients with cytochrome c oxidase deficiency and typical Leigh syndrome revealed different SURF1 mutations in four of them.
We conclude that Surf1 is essential for COX activity and mitochondrial function in D. melanogaster, thus providing a new tool that may help clarify the pathogenic mechanisms of LS.
Here, we report on the therapeutic efficacy of KH176, a new chemical entity derivative of Trolox, in Ndufs4 <sup>-/-</sup> mice, a mammalian model for Leigh Disease.
SURF1 gene mutations are the most common cause of Leigh syndrome (LS), a rare progressive neurodegenerative disorder of infancy, characterized by symmetric necrotizing lesions and hypervascularity in the brainstem and basal ganglia, leading to death before the age of 4 years.
Mice lacking Ndufs4, encoding NADH: ubiquinone oxidoreductase iron-sulfur protein 4 (NDUFS4) recapitulates the main findings of complex I (cI)-related LS, including severe multisystemic cI deficiency and progressive neurodegeneration.
We report a new 18-bp deletion (821del18), spanning the splice donor junction of exon 8 of SURF1, in an infant presenting with cytochrome c oxidase-deficient Leigh syndrome and hypertrichosis. cDNA sequencing demonstrated that this deletion results in a messenger lacking exon 8.
Mice lacking the mitochondrial complex I (CI) subunit Ndufs4 ( Ndufs4<sup>-/-</sup>) develop a fatal progressive encephalopathy and serve as a model for Leigh syndrome, the most common mitochondrial disease in children.
We previously showed that breathing chronic, continuous hypoxia can prevent and even reverse neurological disease in the Ndufs4 knockout (KO) mouse model of complex I (CI) deficiency and Leigh syndrome.
A popular mouse model of mitochondrial disease that lacks NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase subunit S4 (NDUFS4), a subunit of mitochondrial complex I, phenocopies many traits of the human disease Leigh syndrome, including the development of optic atrophy.
These findings support the suggestion that the p.Lys154fs mutation in NDUFS4 should be evaluated in Ashkenazi Jewish patients presenting with early onset Leigh syndrome even before enzymatic studies.
The aim of the present study was to review the MR findings in patients with LS to verify if the genetically homogeneous patients with LS and SURF-1 mutations (LS SURF-1 patients) had a homogeneous MR pattern that could be used to differentiate them from other patients with LS (LS non-SURF-1 patients).
The clinical phenotype caused by mutations in human SCO2 differs from that caused by mutations in SURF1, the only other known COX assembly gene associated with a human disease, Leigh syndrome.
The authors have identified four pathogenic mutations including a novel, in-frame, 15-bp tandem duplication (806-820) in exon 8 and a novel 751+1G>A splice site mutation in SURF1 in three cases of LS with COX deficiency.