Sporadic late-onset nemaline myopathy (SLONM) is distinct from congenital nemaline myopathies, which are associated with genetic abnormalities. There are many cases of SLONM with M-proteinemia, but treatment response and life expectancy are poor. Several studies have reported that patients with M protein-positive SLONM treated with high-dose melphalan combined with autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HDM-ASCT) presented good long-term outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe causes of peripheral neuropathy are diverse and include numerous systemic diseases. Polyneuropathy, organomegaly, endocrinopathy, monoclonal gammopathy, and skin changes (POEMS) syndrome is a pertinent condition and is characterized by elevated serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). However, several other diseases with elevated VEGF have been reported besides POEMS syndrome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeuropathol Appl Neurobiol
April 2025
Optineurin is a causative gene of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and has many roles in processes such as autophagy and inflammation. However, it is unclear how optineurin causes ALS. Optineurin knock-out (Optn-KO) mice, which have been generated by several researchers, exhibit motor neuron degeneration and TDP-43 aggregates, but no motor deficits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMov Disord Clin Pract
June 2024
Biochem Biophys Res Commun
November 2023
Apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4), the strongest risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), has been revealed to cause greater accumulation of extracellular amyloid β (Aβ) aggregates than does APOE3 in traditional transgenic mouse models of AD. However, concerns that the overexpression paradigm might have affected the phenotype remain. Amyloid precursor protein (APP)-knock-in (KI) mice, incorporating APP mutations associated with AD development, offer an alternative approach for overproducing pathogenic Aβ without needing overexpression of APP.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe discovery of transacting response DNA-binding protein of 43 kDa (TDP-43) led to a deeper understanding of the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Since this discovery, blood and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of ALS have been reported. However, these biomarkers do not exhibit sufficient specificity for ALS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAmyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the degeneration of motor neurons. Although repeat expansion in C9orf72 is its most common cause, the pathogenesis of ALS isn't fully clear. In this study, we show that repeat expansion in LRP12, a causative variant of oculopharyngodistal myopathy type 1 (OPDM1), is a cause of ALS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMyocarditis is often reported as a complication of COVID-19 infection or post-vaccination, but there are few reports of "myocarditis for Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome", and many unknowns still remain. Apart from that, an association between COVID-19 infection and dermatomyositis has also been reported. We describe the clinical presentation of acute myocarditis in a patient who had developed COVID-19 syndrome one-month earlier.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGNE myopathy is a distal myopathy caused by biallelic variants in GNE, which encodes a protein involved in sialic acid biosynthesis. Compound heterozygosity of the second most frequent variant among Japanese GNE myopathy patients, GNE c.620A>T encoding p.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Hum Genet
February 2023
Facioscapulohumeral dystrophy type1 (FSHD1) patients with a shortened D4Z4 repeat containing the DUX4 gene have a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations. In addition, high expression of DUX4 protein with an aberrant C terminus is frequently identified in B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We investigated clinical manifestations in 31 FSHD1 patients and 30 non-affected individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeurocirugia (Engl Ed)
November 2022
Biochem Biophys Res Commun
October 2022
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are particles released from most cell types delimited by a lipid bilayer. Small EVs (sEVs) are nanosized (<200 nm) and include exosomes. Brain-derived sEVs may provide a source for new biomarkers of brain status.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRationale: Muscle weakness due to cancer-associated dermatomyositis (CADM) can be misdiagnosed as cancer cachexia and disuse atrophy.
Patient Concerns: A 75-year-old female was admitted to our institute with muscle weakness, dysphagia, and suspected gallbladder cancer. Computed tomography and cytopathological examinations of the liver biopsy and fine-needle aspiration from swollen lymph nodes using endoscopic ultrasonography revealed cancer in the gallbladder body and metastasis to the lymph nodes around the abdominal aorta.
J Hum Genet
October 2022
Spinocerebellar ataxia type 14 (SCA14) is an autosomal dominant SCA caused by variants of the PRKCG encoding protein kinase C gamma (PKCγ). Although the toxic gain-of-function mechanism is the main cause of SCA14, its molecular pathophysiology remains unclear. To elucidate the molecular pathogenesis of SCA14, we analyzed two families with the variants in PRKCG.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Degeneration of neuromuscular junctions and axons is considered an important aspect of the pathomechanism of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). However, a mechanism including the role of transactive response DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) in axons has not been pathologically clarified.
Objective: To identify and characterize the histopathology of peripheral axons in the skeletal muscle of patients with ALS.
Background: Although hypercoagulability using D-dimer levels may be a useful marker for predicting outcomes in ischemic stroke patients with cancer, other biological markers for predicting outcomes are unclear. We aimed to investigate the associations between several biological markers and short-term or long-term outcomes among ischemic stroke patients with cancer.
Methods: Consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients with cancer (n = 309) were registered.
Mutations in optineurin (OPTN) have been identified in a small proportion of sporadic and familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cases. Recent evidences suggest that OPTN would be involved in not only the pathophysiological mechanisms of motor neuron death of ALS but also myofiber degeneration of sporadic inclusion body myositis. However, the detailed role of OPTN in muscle remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 68-year-old man with a 2-month history of progressive weakness and spontaneous pain in proximal limb muscles presented to our hospital with a dropped head. He started experiencing progressive dysphagia several days before admission. On admission, he had muscle weakness of the limbs and neck extensors with edema and induration in distal extremities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Both fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) and late-onset neuronal intranuclear inclusion disease (NIID) show CGG/GGC trinucleotide repeat expansions. Differentiating these diseases are difficult because of the similarity in their clinical and radiological features. It is unclear that skin biopsy can distinguish NIID from FXTAS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntern Emerg Med
April 2022
Cancer-associated ischemic stroke (CAS) refers to a hypercoagulation disorder related to malignant tumors, especially adenocarcinoma. Carbohydrate antigen (CA) 125 is a mucinous serum marker that might reflect hypercoagulation status, but the association between CA 125 and CAS is unclear across various types of cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations among tumor markers, coagulation markers, and clinical factors in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients with active cancer.
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