Alex E. MacKenzie and Nathalie H. Gendron are in the
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Solange Gauthier-Karsh
Laboratory, 401 Smyth Road, Ottawa,
Ontario K1H 8L1 Canada.
The first structural analysis of part of the spinal muscular atrophy
(SMA)-causing 'survival of motor neurons' (SMN) protein reveals a structural
similarity to the common spliceosomal small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (snRNP)
Sm proteins. This observation gives clues to possible SMN roles in the cell,
the loss of which may contribute to the pathogenesis of SMA.
