Spinal muscular atrophy with lower extremity predominance 2A (SMALED2A) is a rare neuromuscular disorder characterised by muscle weakness predominantly in legs. The disorder is usually diagnosed shortly after birth; affected children have a delayed motor development, waddling gait, difficulties walking, sometimes develop spasticity.
Sensation, swallowing and
cognitive development are not affected. The disorder is slowly progressive throughout the lifetime.
The disease is caused by a
mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mi ...
in the ''
BICD2
Bicaudal D cargo adaptor 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''BICD2'' gene.
This gene is one of two human homologs of Drosophila bicaudal-D and a member of the Bicoid family. It has been implicated in dynein-mediated, minus end-direc ...
''
gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...
and is passed on in an
autosomal dominant
In genetics, dominance is the phenomenon of one variant (allele) of a gene on a chromosome masking or overriding the effect of a different variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. The first variant is termed dominant and t ...
manner.
There is no known cure for SMALED2A.
See also
*
Spinal muscular atrophies
*
Spinal muscular atrophy with lower extremity predominance 1
Spinal muscular atrophy with lower extremity predominance 1 (SMALED1) is an extremely rare neuromuscular disorder of infants characterised by severe progressive muscle atrophy which is especially prominent in legs.
The disorder is associated wit ...
*
Spinal muscular atrophy with lower extremity predominance 2B
References
Autosomal dominant disorders
Neurogenetic disorders
Neuromuscular disorders
Rare diseases
Systemic atrophies primarily affecting the central nervous system
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