GENETICS

Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is a hereditary cerebrovascular disease leading to accumulating neurologic deficits and dementia. CADASIL has been linked to nucleotide substitutions and deletions in the Notch3 gene. All the mutations described until now lead to unpaired cysteine residue in the epidermal growth factor-like repeats. The authors report a family with CADASIL carrying a deletion in the Notch3 gene that did not involve a cysteine residue.
Comment: At least 400 families from countries around the world have been described with CADASIL. The four classic features are migraine with aura, stroke, dementia, and psychiatric disturbances. Migraine with aura, especially familial hemiplegic migraine and migraine with prolonged aura, is linked genetically to CADASIL on chromosome 19, occurs in up to 30% of patients, and when present is usually the earliest symptom. Definitive diagnosis is by skin biopsy, with characteristic depositions surrounding degenerating smooth muscle cells in the media. —Stewart J. Tepper, MD