Myoadenylate deaminase deficiency with progressive muscle weakness and atrophy caused by new missense mutations in AMPD1 gene: case report in a Japanese patient

A 46-year-old woman with exertional myalgia developed slowly progressive weakness in her lower extremities. She had slight muscle weakness in her facial and upper extremities, and severe muscle weakness and atrophy in lower extremities more marked in the proximal portions. Serum creatine kinase was slightly elevated. After ischemic forearm exercise test, blood ammonia had no elevation although lactate level increased normally. The computed tomography revealed that a characteristic distribution of skeletal muscle involvement with proximal and flexor muscles more severely affected than distal and extensor in the lower extremities. In addition, the left sternocleidomastoid muscle showed marked atrophy with an asymptomatic weakness of over 20 years duration suggesting abnormal development. Needle EMG examination showed a large number of easily recruited, short-duration, low-amplitude motor unit potentials in all extremities. Muscle biopsy showed absence of adenosine monophosphate deaminase activity with normal cytochrome c oxidase and phosphorylase activity. With the muscle Enzyme activity assay, adenosine monophosphate deaminase activity was found to be lower than 0.2% of the controls. The DNA analysis revealed that she was compound heterozygote involving two missense mutations (R388W and R425H) in exon 9 and exon 10 of AMPD1 gene. This is the first report of primary myoadenylate deaminase deficiency with progressive weakness and atrophy caused by novel compound heterozygous mutations of AMPD1 gene, and suggests that adenosine monophosphate deaminase is closely related not only to energy metabolism but also to the development of skeletal muscle.