Sheep and other animals with ceroid-lipofuscinoses: their relevance to Batten disease.

Distinct pathological and histopathological changes distinguish the ceroid-lipofuscinoses from other storage diseases of humans and animals. These various disease entities likely reflect a variety of mutations of the same gene, or mutations of different genes associated with metabolism of the same or similar substrates. The disease in sheep most closely resembles the juvenile human disease. In it 50% of the lipopigment consists of subunit c of mitochondrial ATP synthase while the remaining constituents are considered normal for a lysosomal derived cytosome. The same subunit c has been shown to be also stored in affected English Setter, Border Collie, and Tibetan Terrier dogs, the Devon cow, and in the late infantile and juvenile human forms of disease but not in the infantile form. Thus it gives a chemical unity to at least some members of the group and allows a major conceptual change in regard to further directions of research.