Brain lesions of the Leigh-type distribution associated with a mitochondriopathy of Pearson's syndrome: light and electron microscopic study.

Pearson's syndrome is a disease of refractory sideroblastic anemia and exocrine pancreatic dysfunction due to abnormal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). A male infant with Pearson's syndrome developed necrosis of both thalami and basal ganglia when he suffered from gastroenteritis at 1 year and 11 months of age. He died of sepsis at the age of 2 years and 4 months. Analysis of mtDNA from various organs revealed abnormal mtDNA with deletion by 5 kbp, confirming the diagnosis. At autopsy, the brain had symmetrical cavities in putamen, caudate nuclei and medial nuclei of the thalami. Ferruginous granules in nerve cells in medial thalamic nuclei, and scattered round bodies with neuronophagia in lateral nuclei were found at light microscopic observation. Electron microscopy showed that these granules were composed of radiating spicules and a dense layer containing packed cytoplasmic organelles, respectively. The macroscopic distribution of brain lesions was very similar to and characteristic of Leigh's disease. This similarity leads to the supposition that defective intracellular energy utilization common to Leigh's disease could be responsible for brain lesions in this case. Although the histological appearance was somewhat atypical for Leigh's disease, very acute formation of brain lesions in this case was thought to have caused the histological difference.