:
TO  : MTS@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu ........... Tom Sanford
    : murray@seattleu.edu ............ MaryAnne Murray
    : stever@tessi.com ............... Steve Rintala
    : SMIRNES@IMIHSRA.BITNET ......... S. Palazzi, MD
    : PHIP@TEMPLEVM.BITNET ........... Tina Phipps, Ph.D.
    : RRICCIUT@WCU.BITNET ............ Rae Ricciuti
    : andrew@uaneuro.uah.ualberta.ca . Andrew Penn, MD
    : IEQZ96M@TJUVM.BITNET ........... Michele Lee
    :
FROM: broedel@geomag.gly.fsu.edu ..... Bob Broedel
    :
RE  : UPI REPORT - ALS
    :
 
UPn  12/31 1249  Genetic clue found for Lou Gehrig's disease
 
   WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Researchers have found a gene that may 
play a role in causing the devastating illness Lou Gehrig's 
disease, it was reported Thursday.
   Researchers at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., and 
at Duke University in Durham, N.C., identified a gene that, 
when flawed, may cause Lou Gehrig's, which is also known as 
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS.
   "This genetic finding is very exciting," said Leon Charash, 
chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association's medical advisory 
committee. "We may soon have some answers in this baffling and 
terrible motor neuron disease."
   ALS, which killed famed New York Yankees first baseman Lou 
Gehrig in 1941, is a degenerative disorder of nerve cells in 
the brain and spinal cord that control muscle movement. The 
disease, which strikes up to 5, 000 Americans annually, begins 
in adulthood and causes a progressive paralysis, usually ending 
in death within five years.
   The disease killed famed New York Yankees first baseman Lou 
Gehrig in 1941. The disease also killed New York Sen. Jacob Javits, 
actor David Niven and jazz musician Charles Mingus. British 
physicist Stephen J. Hawking has survived with the disease for 
27 years.
   About 5 percent to 10 percent of cases run in families. In 
1991, researchers found evidence that the gene that appears to 
cause the  "familial" form of the disease was likely located on 
chromosome 21, one of 23 human chromosomes, which carry of a 
person's genes.
   In a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of 
Sciences, researchers identified a gene in the suspect region 
of chromosome 21 that, when flawed, may cause ALS.
   The gene carries instructions for part of a "glutamate 
receptor." Glutamate is a chemical that transmits signals in 
the central nervous system. The substance attaches to "glutamate 
receptors" on the surface of nerve cells to work.
   A malfunction of a glutamate receptor could lead to the 
destruction of motor neurons by causing too much calcium to 
enter cells, said Stephen Heinemann of the Salk Institute, one 
of the researchers.
   Last month, Dr. Stanley Appel at Baylor College of Medicine 
in Houston and colleagues reported evidence the more common, 
non-inherited form of ALS may be caused by an "autoimmune 
disease," which is when the immune system mistakenly attacks 
part of the body, causing illness.
   It remains unclear how the genetic and non-genetic forms of 
the disease may be related.
   "Two separate processes could cause the same disease," said 
Jame McNamara, a professor of neurology and neurobiology at 
Duke and another one of the researchers who made the new discovery.
 (adv 630 pm est)
 
== end of als 7 ==