Abstract
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis 2 (ALS2) is an autosomal recessive form of juvenile ALS and has been mapped to human chromosome 2q33. Here we report the identification of two independent deletion mutations linked to ALS2 in the coding exons of the new gene ALS2. These deletion mutations result in frameshifts that generate premature stop codons. ALS2 is expressed in various tissues and cells, including neurons throughout the brain and spinal cord, and encodes a protein containing multiple domains that have homology to RanGEF as well as RhoGEF. Deletion mutations are predicted to cause a loss of protein function, providing strong evidence that ALS2 is the causative gene underlying this form of ALS.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the patients and other members of the ALS2 families for participating in this study; A.E. MacKenzie, R.G. Korneluk, I. Kanazawa, J.-C. Barbot and J.-C. Kaplan for providing control DNA samples; D. Rochefort for technical support; and all the members of our laboratories for helpful discussion and suggestions. This work was funded by the Japan Science and Technology Corporation, the Canadian Genetic Diseases Network, the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, the Nakabayashi Trust For ALS Research, the Japan Brain Foundation, the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research Priority Areas for the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, and Culture (Japan), the Canadian Institute for Health Research, the Muscular Dystrophy Association (USA), the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association, the National Institute for Neurological Disease (USA), National Institute for Aging (USA), Angel Fund for ALS Research (Boston, USA), Project ALS (New York, USA), Pierre L. DeBourgknecht ALS Research Foundation and Al-Athel ALS Foundation. M.R.H. is a holder of a Canada Research Chair. G.A.R. is supported by the Canadian Institute of Health Research. S.W.S. is a Scholar of the Medical Research Council of Canada. J.-E.I. is a scientific director of NeuroGenes/International Cooperative Research Project/Japan Science and Technology Corporation.
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Hadano, S., Hand, C., Osuga, H. et al. A gene encoding a putative GTPase regulator is mutated in familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis 2. Nat Genet 29, 166–173 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1001-166
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1001-166
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