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New Trends in Gaucher Disease: A Model for Rare Lysosomal Disorders

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 8308

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor

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Guest Editor
Lysosomal Disorders Treatment and Research Program, Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry, UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester, MA 01655, USA
Interests: lysosomal storage diseases; Gaucher disease
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are excited to invite you to be part of our new Special Issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences entitled: "Advances in Gaucher Disease: A Model for Rare Lysosomal Disorders". Gaucher disease is truly a remarkable model for rare diseases. It was among the first genetic disorders to demonstrate genotype–phenotype relationships using PCR-based methodology, and the first lysosomal storage disorder (LSD) to benefit from the orphan drug law three decades ago, and to have different therapeutic options.

Although rare world-wide (1:50,000–100,000), it has a high prevenance among Ashkenazi Jews, and most of the patients with the so called "adult type" or type 1 live a normal lifespan, thereby allowing long term assessments as well as larger cohorts of patients compared to lethal disorders at a young age. There are also diverse animal models from different mice through drosophila fruit flies to zebra fish and human derived iPSCs, providing endless research opportunities. Gaucher disease was the very first lysosomal storage disease to have a safe and effective intravenous enzyme replacement therapy, to get market approval for oral substrate reduction therapy, and in addition, there are several additional treatment modalities such as pharmacological chaperones different gene therapy approaches.

Still, there are many unmet needs and unresolved challenges, including the lack of treatment for the neuronopathic forms, the high cost of therapies leaving many untreated patients in poor countries, and the associations with common diseases such as various malignancies and neurodegenerative disorders, particularly Parkinson’s disease. With regard to the latter, we may be able in the near future to leverage the knowledge from Gaucher disease to the development of innovative therapies for these most common disorders, making the research of Gaucher disease all the more important.

We are looking forward to receiving your contributions, and to what we believe might be an excellent up-to-date issue on all aspects of Gaucher disease, from basic science to clinical observations and therapies.

Prof. Dr. Ari Zimran
Prof. Dr. Shoshana Revel-Vilk
Prof. Dr. Edward I. Ginns
Guest Editors

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1183 KiB  
Article
Serum Phospholipid Profile Changes in Gaucher Disease and Parkinson’s Disease
by Laura López de Frutos, Francisco Almeida, Jessica Murillo-Saich, Vasco A. Conceição, Monica Guma, Oswald Queheberger, Pilar Giraldo and Gabriel Miltenberger-Miltenyi
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(18), 10387; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms231810387 - 8 Sep 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2697
Abstract
Alterations in the levels of serum sphingolipids and phospholipids have been reported in Gaucher disease and in Parkinson’s disease, suggesting a potential role of these lipids as biomarkers. This project’s objective is to detect novel associations and novel candidate biomarkers in the largest [...] Read more.
Alterations in the levels of serum sphingolipids and phospholipids have been reported in Gaucher disease and in Parkinson’s disease, suggesting a potential role of these lipids as biomarkers. This project’s objective is to detect novel associations and novel candidate biomarkers in the largest Spanish Gaucher and Parkinson diseases of the Iberian Peninsula. For that, 278 participants were included: 100 sporadic Parkinson’s patients, 70 Gaucher patients, 15 GBA1-mutation-carrier Parkinson’s patients and 93 controls. A serum lipidomics array including 10 phospholipid groups, 368 species, was performed using high-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry. Lipid levels were compared between groups via multiple-regression analyses controlling for clinical and demographic parameters. Additionally, lipid levels were compared within the Gaucher and Parkinson’s groups controlling for medication and/or disease severity. Results were controlled for robustness by filtering of non-detectable lipid values. There was an increase in the levels of phosphatidylcholine, with a simultaneous decrease in lyso-phosphatidylcholine, in the Gaucher, Parkinson’s and GBA1-mutation-carrier Parkinson’s patients vs. controls. Phosphatidylethanolamine, lyso- and plasmalogen-phosphatidylethanolamine were also increased in Gaucher and Parkinson’s. Gaucher patients also showed an increase in lyso-phosphatidylserine and phosphatidylglycerol. While in the Gaucher and Parkinson’s groups, velaglucerase alpha and dopamine agonists, respectively, showed positive associations with the lipid changes, miglustat treatment in Gaucher patients normalized the altered phosphatidylcholine/lyso-phosphatidylcholine ratio. In conclusion, Gaucher and Parkinson’s patients showed changes in various serum phospholipid levels when compared with healthy controls, further supporting the role of such lipids in disease development and, possibly, as putative biomarkers. This hypothesis was reinforced by the normalizing effect of miglustat, and by controlling for data robustness, even though the limited number of participants, especially in the sub-distribution by treatment groups in GD requires validation in a larger number of patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Gaucher Disease: A Model for Rare Lysosomal Disorders)
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11 pages, 1360 KiB  
Article
Gaucher Disease Diagnosis Using Lyso-Gb1 on Dry Blood Spot Samples: Time to Change the Paradigm?
by Tama Dinur, Peter Bauer, Christian Beetz, Guido Kramp, Claudia Cozma, Marius-Ionuț Iurașcu, Michal Becker-Cohen, Majdolen Istaiti, Arndt Rolfs, Ari Zimran and Shoshana Revel-Vilk
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(3), 1627; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23031627 - 30 Jan 2022
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 4572
Abstract
For years, the gold standard for diagnosing Gaucher disease (GD) has been detecting reduced β-glucocerebrosidase (GCase) activity in peripheral blood cells combined with GBA1 mutation analysis. The use of dried blood spot (DBS) specimens offers many advantages, including easy collection, the need for [...] Read more.
For years, the gold standard for diagnosing Gaucher disease (GD) has been detecting reduced β-glucocerebrosidase (GCase) activity in peripheral blood cells combined with GBA1 mutation analysis. The use of dried blood spot (DBS) specimens offers many advantages, including easy collection, the need for a small amount of blood, and simpler transportation. However, DBS has limitations for measuring GCase activity. In this paper, we recount our cross-sectional study and publish seven years of experience using DBS samples and levels of the deacylated form of glucocerebroside, glucosylsphingosine (lyso-Gb1), for GD diagnosis. Of 444 screened subjects, 99 (22.3%) were diagnosed with GD at a median (range) age of 21 (1–78) years. Lyso-Gb levels for genetically confirmed GD patients vs. subjects negative to GD diagnosis were 252 (9–1340) ng/mL and 5.4 (1.5–16) ng/mL, respectively. Patients diagnosed with GD1 and mild GBA1 variants had lower median (range) lyso-Gb1, 194 (9–1050), compared to GD1 and severe GBA1 variants, 447 (38–1340) ng/mL, and neuronopathic GD, 325 (116–1270) ng/mL (p = 0.001). Subjects with heterozygous GBA1 variants (carrier) had higher lyso-Gb1 levels, 5.8 (2.5–15.3) ng/mL, compared to wild-type GBA1, 4.9 (1.5–16), ng/mL (p = 0.001). Lyso-Gb1 levels, median (range), were 5 (2.7–10.7) in heterozygous GBA1 carriers with Parkinson’s disease (PD), similar to lyso-Gb1 levels in subjects without PD. We call for a paradigm change for the diagnosis of GD based on lyso-Gb1 measurements and confirmatory GBA1 mutation analyses in DBS. Lyso-Gb1 levels could not be used to differentiate between heterozygous GBA1 carriers and wild type. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Trends in Gaucher Disease: A Model for Rare Lysosomal Disorders)
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