Hope for patients with Methylmalonic aciduria

The University Children's Hospital Zurich is one of the leading global centers for diagnosing and treating Methylmalonic aciduria (MMA), a metabolic disorder in which affected children and adolescents often use wheelchairs and do not always survive to reach adulthood.

Patient samples from all over the world are sent to Zurich for diagnosis. In a large interdisciplinary project, scientist from various Swiss research institutions studied 210 biopsies in detail. They examined not only all of the genes (DNA) in the patient’s cells but also the RNA transcripts of these genes and many of the proteins.

This is the first time that MMA has been studied using a multi-omics approach (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics).

By opting to expand significantly their molecular investigation, the researchers considered not only the disease’s genetic cause but also its consequences in terms of RNA, proteins, and protein function. This enabled the consortium, as part of this study, to develop a diagnostic strategy that correctly diagnosed 84 percent of the patients examined.

The multi-omics data also showed that MMA patients use an alternative energy source to help deal with the fact that a vital enzyme is defective. However, in patients, this alternative energy source usually is not able to sufficiently compensate for energy production lost. In in vitro experiments with patient cells, the researchers succeeded in boosting energy production to near-normal levels by supplying such an alternative energy source.

Reference:

Bernd Wollscheid et al,Integrated multi-omics reveals anaplerotic rewiring in methylmalonyl-CoA mutase deficiency,Nature Metabolism,doi 10.1038/s42255-022-00720-8