Nonketotic hyperglycinemia. Glycine accumulation due to absence of glycerine cleavage in brain.

Glycine concentrations were measured in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid of five patients in different types of hyperglycinemia to determine why severe neurologic deterioration is confined to the so-called nonketotic form of hyperglycinemia. Glycine content and glycine-cleavage enzyme activity were also determined in brain obtained in autopsy from three of these patients. Spinal-fluid glycine concentrations were 15 to 30 times above normal in patients with nonketotic hyperglycinemia, but were normal in those with hyperglycinemias of undetermined type who had comparable elevations of plasma glycine. Glycine content was two to four times above normal in several brain regions, and brain glycine cleavage enzyme activity was absent in two patients dying of nonketotic hyperglycinemia. By contrast, glycine content was normal and glycine cleavage activity present in the brain of an infant who died of hyperglycinemia of unknown cause. These results suggest that elevated glycine levels may be harmless in blood, but lethal in brain.