Abstract
Summary: Glycine content and enzyme activity of the glycine cleavage system were compared in autopsied brain from five infants dying with glycine encephalopathy and four control infants, including two with other types of hyperglyeinemia. Glycine content was elevated 2− to 8-fold and glycine cleavage enzyme activity was undetectable in the brains of the glycine encephalopathy patients. Glycine content and enzyme activity were normal in the brains of the control patients, including one with ketotic hyperglyeinemia secondary to methylmalonic acidemia. Prolonged dialysis failed to restore glycine cleavage enzyme activity in brain homogenates of glycine encephalopathy patients, and these homogenates failed to inhibit enzyme activity when added to homogenates of control brain. Radioactive bicarbonate was converted to radioactive glycine by control brain, but not by glycine encephalopathy brain. This Finding, together with the results of recombination experiments between solubilized human brain enzymes and purified protein components of the bacterial glycine cleavage system of Arthrobacter globiformis, indicates that the enzyme defect in glycine encephalopathy involves at least the second or H protein of the 4-protein glycine cleavage enzyme system.
Speculation: The severe neurologic syndrome that characterizes glycine encephalopathy, in contrast to some other forms of hyperglycinemia, is probably caused by absence of glycine cleavage enzyme activity and marked elevation of glycine content in infantile brain. Since symptoms of this inherited disorder only appear shortly after birth, a firmly bound endogenous inhibitor of the glycine cleavage enzyme may accumulate in brain of affected infants, who have been protected during fetal life by clearance of the putative inhibitor across the placenta.
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Perry, T., Urouhart, N., Hansen, S. et al. Studies of the Glycine Cleavage Enzyme System in Brain from Infants with Glycine Encephalopathy. Pediatr Res 11, 1192–1197 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197712000-00005
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197712000-00005
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