Genetics of pediatric neuromuscular disease.

Our understanding of the neuromuscular disorders of childhood has been rapidly expanding. This is mostly because of the discovery of the underlying genetic loci for the vast majority of these diseases and the abnormal proteins produced caused by these mutations. Spinal muscular atrophy is the second most frequent autosomal recessive disease of childhood and the most fatal. It has been mapped to chromosome 5q11.2-13.3, an area with three distinct genes associated with spinal muscular atrophy. Charcot-Marie-Tooth is the most common inherited peripheral neuropathy. Three genes encoding for myelin proteins and one for a nuclear protein have been associated with this group of disorders. Finally, since dystrophin was cloned in 1986, many proteins assisting dystrophin in anchoring the muscle cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix have been discovered. Mutations in these genes lead to various forms of muscular dystrophy.