Tay-Sachs Disease
Tay-Sachs disease is a severe genetic disease of the nervous system that is nearly always fatal, usually by three to four years of age. It is caused by mutations in the HEXA gene, which codes for a component of the enzyme β-hexosaminidase A or "Hex A." The resulting accumulation of a brain lipid called GM2 ganglioside produces brain and spinal cord degeneration. It is a rare disease that is found in all populations, but it is particularly prevalent in Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern European origin. There is no treatment, but research aimed at treating the disease by blocking synthesis of the affected molecules has been ongoing since the late 1990s. Carriers can be identified by DNA or enzyme tests and prenatal diagnosis is available to at-risk families.
History and Disease Description
In 1881 Warren Tay, a British ophthalmologist, observed a "cherry red spot" in the retina of a one-year-old child with mental and physical retardation. Later, in 1896 Bernard Sachs, an American neurologist, observed extreme swelling of neurons in autopsy tissue from affected children. He also noted that the disease seemed to run in families of Jewish origin. Both physicians were describing the same disease, but it was not until the 1930s that the material causing the cherry-red spot and neuronal swelling was identified as a ganglioside lipid and the disease could be recognized as an "inborn error of metabolism." The term "ganglioside" was coined because of the high abundance of the brain lipid in normal ganglion cells (a type of brain cell).
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