Glomerular pathology in Alport syndrome: a molecular perspective

Alport syndrome. Molecular genetic aspects.

Alport syndrome (AS) is a progressive renal disease that is characterised by hematuria and progressive renal failure, and often accompanied by progressive high-tone sensorineural hearing loss and ocular changes in form of macular flecks and lenticonus. AS is a genetic heterogenous disease, and X-linked dominant in about 85% of the families. The autosomal recessive and dominant forms constitute ...

Molecular testing for adult type Alport syndrome

BACKGROUND Alport syndrome (AS) is a progressive renal disease with cochlear and ocular involvement. The majority of AS cases are X-linked (XLAS) and due to mutations in the COL4A5 gene. Although the disease may appear early in life and progress to end stage renal disease (ESRD) in young adults, in other families ESRD occurs in middle age. Few of the more than four hundred mutations described i...

Pathology versus molecular genetics: (re)defining the spectrum of Alport syndrome

Malone et al. performed next-generation sequencing on 70 families with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) and discovered that 10% had variants in surprising 'old' genes, COL4A3 and COL4A4, which are involved in Alport syndrome and thin basement membrane nephropathy. These data show that a subset of renal manifestations associated with COL4A3 or COL4A4 variants cannot be distinguished fro...

Alport Syndrome

A.K. was a 5-year-old boy who presented to the pediatric nephrology clinic with a recent finding of microscopic hematuria and proteinuria on routine screening. The analysis was repeated two weeks later with persistence of hematuria and proteinuria. A complete blood count (CBC) and a metabolic panel (Chem7) were both normal. Renal ultrasound was performed which was also normal and without hydron...

The molecular genetics of Alport syndrome: report of two workshops.