Clinical and genetic characteristics of Mexican Huntington's disease patients |
| |
| Authors: | María Elisa Alonso MD Adriana Ochoa MSc Marie‐Catherine Boll MD PhD Ana Luisa Sosa MD Petra Yescas PhD Marisol López PhD Rosario Macias BSc Itziar Familiar MD Astrid Rasmussen MD PhD |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Neurogenetics and Molecular Biology, Instituto Nacional de Neurología y Neurocirugía Manuel Velasco Suárez, Mexico City, Mexico;2. Division of Neurology, Instituto Nacional de Neurología y Neurocirugía Manuel Velasco Suárez, Mexico City, Mexico;3. Clinic of Behaviour and Cognition, Instituto Nacional de Neurología y Neurocirugía Manuel Velasco Suárez, Mexico City, Mexico;4. Department of Biological Systems, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana‐Xochimilco, Mexico City, Mexico;5. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA;6. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | We report the characteristics of 691 Mexican patients with Huntington's disease (HD). These patients, representing 401 families, constitute the largest series of Mexican HD cases as yet described in the literature. We found the clinical characteristics of these patients to be similar to those of other populations, but we observed a higher frequency of infantile cases, a shorter disease duration and a lower suicide rate. In 626 cases, for which molecular analyses were available, CAG‐trinucleotide expansion size ranged from 37–106 repeats. The large number of CAG repeats (19.04 ± 3.02) in normal alleles and the presence of new mutations suggest that the overall prevalence of HD in the Mexican population could be expected to be within range of, or higher than, that reported for Europeans. © 2009 Movement Disorder Society |
| |
| Keywords: | Huntington's disease CAG repeat Latin‐ American population Mexican population |
|
|
