SEARCH · PubMed Health
Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Erythrocyte fructose 1,6-bisphosphate aldolase (EC 4.1.2.13) activity was measured in eight children and adults with hereditary fructose intolerance and found to be normal when compared with eleven healthy controls. Therefore, hereditary fructose intolerance cannot be diagnosed by assaying red blood cell aldolase.
Hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) is the most important disturbance in human fructose metabolism. This paper deals with the present knowledge of biochemistry and pathophysiology of this inborn error of metabolism, which is often wrongly diagnosed and gives a detailed description of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.
Hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) is a human autosomal recessive disease caused by a deficiency of aldolase B that results in an inability to metabolize fructose and related sugars. We report here the first identification of a molecular lesion in the aldolase B gene of an affected individual whose defective protein has previously been characterized. The mutation is a G----C transversion in exon 5 that creates a new recognition site for the restriction enzyme Ahall and results in an amino acid substitution (Ala----Pro) at position 149 of the protein within a region critical for substrate binding. Utilizing this novel restriction site and the polymerase chain reaction, the patient was shown to be homozygous for the mutation. Three other HFI patients from pedigrees unrelated to this individual were found to have the same mutation: two were homozygous and one was heterozygous. We suggest that this genetic lesion is a prevailing cause of hereditary fructose intolerance.
Hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) was diagnosed in a 61 year-old male patient on account of liver dysfunction followed by prolonged shock immediately after the administration of a fructose and lactose infusion postoperatively. The diagnosis of HFI was based on an increased value of fructose, hypoglycaemia, lactic acidosis and diminution of the phosphate level in combination with the typical family history. The patient's children showed a normal reaction to fructose administration. The therapy included glucose, insulin and heparin administration, balance of acidosis and partial exchange of blood, which resulted in improvement in the glucose level, coagulation factors and acidosis, but could not prevent further liver damage and uraemia with a fatal outcome.
The molecular basis of hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) was studied in 50 subjects (41 pedigrees, 82 apparently independent mutant alleles of aldolase B) by direct analysis of aldolase B genes amplified by means of the polymerase chain reaction. The mutation A149P (ala 149----pro) was found in 67% of alleles but was significantly more common in patients from northern than from southern Europe. Two other point mutations of aldolase B were identified. A174D (C----A; ala 174----asp) was found in subjects from Italy, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia (overall frequency 16%) but not in those from the United Kingdom, France, or the United States. L288 delta C carried a single base-pair deletion causing frameshift at codon 288 and was restricted to Sicilian subjects. By testing for these mutations in amplified DNA with a limited panel of allele-specific oligonucleotides, more than 95% of HFI patients will be susceptible to genetic diagnosis.
Four cases of hereditary fructose intolerance with an early onset are reported. The features of acute liver failure in the neonatal period include a haemorrhagic syndrome, collapse, neurological features, hypoglycaemia, disturbed bleeding and clotting studies and abnormal liver function tests. Investigations into the aetiology include a search for bacterial or viral infection but particularly for a metabolic cause: especially for hereditary fructose intolerance which may be difficult to distinguish from tyrosinosis. Finally, methods of treatment are discussed: continuous glucose infusion, exchange transfusion, assisted ventilation, and dietary measures beginning with protein exclusion. The importance of careful observation is stressed (particularly sequential studies of bloodclotting factors).
Fructose intolerance is caused by a deficit of the liver aldolase B enzyme. Its molecular mechanisms were studied at different sites: The protein was studied by a method combining electrophoresis, transfer and immunology. It was present in the 15 cases examined. The genetic variability was demonstrated by the quantitative differences of the immunoreactive proteins. Aldolase messenger RNA was prepared and used to direct in vitro synthesis of human aldolase. Cloning complementary DNA of human aldolase was achieved by using the messenger RNA. Two clones were prepared. The aldolase B gene was then analysed using restriction enzymes in 60 control subjects and 11 patients. An abnormality of the DNA was demonstrated in one of the patients and in her father.
In patients with hereditary fructose intolerance, which is characterized by deficient aldolase activity toward fructose-1-phosphate, fructose induces a renal tubular dysfunction that implicates only the proximal convoluted tubule. Because normal metabolism of fructose by way of fructose-1-phosphate requires fructokinase, aldolase "B," and triokinase, the exclusively cortical location of these enzymes indicates that the medulla is not involved in the metabolic abnormality presumably causal of the renal dysfunction.
The effect of fructose on liver metabolism in patients with hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) and in heterozygotes for HFI was studied by 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-MRS). In patients with HFI (n = 5) ingestion of small amounts of fructose was followed by an increase in sugar phosphates and decrease in inorganic phosphate (Pi) in the liver that could be detected by 31P-MRS. 31P-MRS could be used to diagnose fructose intolerance and to monitor the patients' compliance with a fructose-restricted diet. In heterozygotes (n = 8) 50 g fructose given orally led to accumulation of sugar phosphates and depletion of Pi in the liver. Fructose also induced a larger increase in plasma urate in heterozygotes than in control subjects. The effect of fructose on liver Pi and plasma urate was most pronounced in heterozygotes with gout (n = 3). Heterozygosity for HFI may predispose to hyperuricaemia.
In a woman with hereditary fructose intolerance and intact parathyroid function, the experimental administration of fructose at different dosage schedules invariably induced the dose-dependent, complex dysfunction of the proximal renal tubule now recognized as characteristic. But in a woman with hereditary fructose intolerance and hypoparathyroidism given similar amounts of fructose, the experimental dysfunction was strikingly attenuated or nondemonstrable unless or until fructose and parathyroid hormone were administered in sustained combination. Thereupon, a renal dysfunction of characteristic type and severity occurred invariably and almost immediately. Thus, the concentration of circulating parathyroid hormone can modulate the functional expression of the experimental renal disorder. This effect of parathyroid hormone, which appears to involve more than simple physiologic summation, may have important clinical implications.
After the infusion of fructose, 0.25 g/kg body wt, the mean peak plasma uric acid level was 5.4 +/- 0.7 (SEM) mg/100 ml in six normal children and was not significantly increased compared with that of the mean basal value of 4.1 +/- 0.5 mg/100 ml. The mean blood inorganic phosphate (Pi) levels were significantly less than the mean fasting value after fructose. Blood glucose, lactic acid, and fructose levels were significantly increased after fructose, but serum magnesium levels did not change. In two patients with hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) the peak blood uric acid levels were 12.1 and 7.6 mg/100 ml, respectively, after fructose. In both patients the blood glucose concentrations decreased 69 and 26 mg/100 ml below the fasting levels after fructose. The serum Pi level decreased 2.3 and 1.2 mg/100 ml below fasting values, decrements greater than the mean decrement in serum Pi of 0.8 +/- 0.2 mg/100 ml which occurred in six normal children. The mean uric acid excretion, expressed as milligrams per mg urinary creatinine, was 0.6 +/- 0.1 (SEM) before fructose in the normal children and increased significantly to 1.0 +/- mg/mg creatinine after fructose. In two patients with HFI the uric acid excretion increased four- to fivefold after fructose administration; the increased uric acid excretion in HFI exceeded that of normal children. In three patients with galactosemia, increases in blood uric acid levels after galactose ingestion were similar to those in normal children after fructose, but less than those in patients with HFI after fructose. The serum Pi levels decreased less in galactosemic patients after galactose administration than in patients with HFI after fructose infusion. These studies support the hypothesis that fructose-induced hyperuricemia results from degradation of adenosine monophosphate. This effect appears to be specific for fructose. The lack of hyperruricemia in galactosemia patients after galactose ingestion may be explained by the observation that galactose is phosphorylated more slowly than fructose.
Hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) is a metabolic disorder caused by enzymic deficiency of aldolase B, a genetically distinct cytosolic isoenzyme expressed exclusively in liver, kidney, and intestine. The molecular basis of this enzyme defect has been investigated in three affected individuals from a nonconsanguineous kindred, in whom fructose-l-phosphate aldolase activities in liver or intestinal biopsy samples were reduced to 2-6% of mean control values. To identify a putative enzyme mutant in tissue extracts, aldolase B was purified from human liver by affinity chromatography and monospecific antibodies were prepared from antiserum raised in sheep. Immunodiffusion gels showed a single precipitin line common to pure enzyme and extracts of normal liver and intestine, but no reaction with extracts of brain, muscle, or HFI liver. However, weak positive staining for aldolase in hepatocyte and enterocyte cytosol was demonstrated by indirect immunofluorescence of HFI tissues. This was abolished by pretreatment with pure enzyme protein. Accordingly, a specific radioimmunoassay (detection limit 7.5 ng) was established to quantify immunoreactive aldolase B in human biopsy specimens. Extracts of tissue from affected patients gave 10-25% immunoreactive enzyme in control samples; immunoreactive aldolase in intestinal extracts from four heterozygotes was reduced (to 55%) when compared with seven samples from normal control subjects (P < 0.05). In extracts of HFI tissues, there was a sevenfold reduction in apparent absolute specific activity (1.02 vs. 8.82 U/mg) of immunoreactive fructose-l-phosphate aldolase B, but the apparent specific activity in heterozygotes (7.71 U/mg) was only slightly impaired. Displacement radioimmunotitration of aldolase B in liver supernatants showed a significant (P < 0.005) decrease in antibody avidity for immunoreactive protein in HFI tissue when compared with the pure enzyme or extract of normal control liver. Immunoaffinity chromatography on antialdolase B-Sepharose facilitated isolation and purification of enzyme from liver biopsy specimens. Active aldolase in normal liver, with substrate activity ratios and Michaelis constants identical to biochemically purified human enzyme, could be recovered from antibody columns. Chromatography on monospecific Fab' antialdolase B enabled pure enzyme protein to be retrieved quantitatively from normal control and HFI liver: direct chemical assay showed 1.88 and 1.15 mg aldolase protein/g of tissue, respectively. This confirmed that the catalytic properties of the HFI aldolase were profoundly impaired with specific activities of fructose-l-phosphate cleavage of 7.21 and 0.07 U/mg, respectively. Radioimmunoassay gave estimates of 7.66 and 1.18 U/mg, respectively. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide electrophoresis indicated that immunopurified aldolase from HFI liver possessed a single subunit size similar to material from control liver extracts: M(r) 39,100 vs. 37,900+/-700 (SD) D, respectively. Electrofocusing under denaturing conditions of aldolase isolated in parallel from control and HFI liver revealed the same complement of subunits and, despite qualitative differences in distribution of bands during degradation, no additional charged species. Fructose phosphate aldolase deficiency in hereditary fructose intolerance is attended by the synthesis of an immunoreactive, but functionally and structurally modified enzyme variant that results from a restricted genetic mutation.
An inborn deficiency in the ability of aldolase B to split fructose 1-phosphate is found in humans with hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI). A stable isotope procedure to elucidate the mechanism of conversion of fructose to glucose in normal children and in HFI children has been developed. A constant infusion of D-[U-13C]fructose was given nasogastrically to control and to HFI children. Hepatic fructose conversion to glucose was estimated by examination of 13C NMR spectra of plasma glucose. The conversion parameters in the control and HFI children were estimated on the basis of doublet/singlet values of the plasma beta-glucose C-1 splitting pattern as a function of the rate of fructose infusion (0.26-0.5 mg/kg per min). Significantly lower values (approximately 3-fold) for fructose conversion to glucose were obtained for the HFI patients as compared to the controls. A quantitative determination of the metabolic pathways of fructose conversion to glucose was derived from 13C NMR measurement of plasma [13C]glucose isotopomer populations. The finding of isotopomer populations of three adjacent 13C atoms at glucose C-4 (13C3-13C4-13C5) suggests that there is a direct pathway from fructose, by-passing fructose-1-phosphate aldolase, to fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. The metabolism of fructose by fructose-1-phosphate aldolase activity accounts for only approximately 50% of the total amount of hepatic fructose conversion to glucose. It is suggested that phosphorylation of fructose 1-phosphate to fructose 1,6-bisphosphate by 1-phosphofructokinase occurs in human liver (and intestine) when fructose is administered nasogastrically; 47% and 27% of the total fructose conversion to glucose in controls and in HFI children, respectively, takes place by way of this pathway. In view of the marked decline by 67% in synthesis of glucose from fructose in HFI subjects found in this study, the extent of [13C]glucose formation from a "trace" amount (approximately 20 mg/kg) of [U-13C]fructose infused into the patient can be used as a safe and noninvasive diagnostic test for inherent faulty fructose metabolism.
In order to diagnose hereditary fructose intolerance up to now, there were only the dangerous fructose-load and the biochemical evidence of this metabolic defect from biopsies of liver, intestine or kidney. Since there are no screening tests nor tests for heterocygote carriers or prenatal diagnostic procedures, we tested a simple method to determine serum activities of the two enzymes concerned in this defect (fructose-1-phosphate aldolase, fructose-1,6-diphosphate aldolase). Even in completely healthy children we could measure both activities in a good range. Children with known liver lesion caused other than HFI had significantly increased activities of both enzymes. In 4 cases with HFI we could not measure any activity of fructose-1-phosphate aldolase and a decreased activity of fructose-1,6-di-phosphate aldolase in serum, despite an apparently damaged liver. We propose to define those two serum activities in any case of an obscure liver lesion, frequent vomiting and postprandial hypoglycemia in early childhood, in order to exclude HFI or to demonstrate its possible presence.
In connection with nephrectomy fatal liver and renal failure occurred after infusion of 50 g sorbitol in a 28 years old patient with undiagnosed fructose intolerance. A marked hypoglycemia and lactacidosis, an increase in uric acid, an acute liver failure with breakdown of excretory and synthetic function and disorder of hemostasis were typical of fructose/sorbitol infusion in hereditary fructose intolerance. Under adequate diet, as indicated in our case, HFI could be undiagnosed up to adult age. Therefore, fructose intolerance should be excluded by anamnesis before infusion of fructose/sorbitol. In unknown anamnesis (unconsciousness) fructose/sorbitol containing infusions should not be used. Fructose/sorbitol containing infusions should not be given routinely, but only with certain indication.
The diagnosis of hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) presents a difficult challenge that often involves procedures of high risk to the patient. A relatively noninvasive method that involves molecular analysis of common alleles would offer a decided advantage. The molecular defects in the aldolase B gene were studied in 31 HFI subjects (23 pedigrees, 47 apparently independent alleles) from the United States and Canada. We screened for the three most common European alleles by direct hybridization of allele-specific oligodeoxyribonucleotides (ASOs) to portions of the aldolase B gene that were amplified by PCR. Fifty-five percent of mutant North American alleles were A149P (ala149----pro), the most common mutation in the European population. The other two alleles, A174D (ala174----asp) and N334K (asn334----lys), represent 11 and 2% of North American alleles, respectively. Nine patients, representing 32% of independent alleles studied, had an HFI allele that was not of this common missense class. This North American allele distribution is significantly different from that in Europe, where 13% of HFI alleles are not of this type. Preliminary screening of amplified DNA with this set of ASOs indicated that 80% of symptomatic HFI patients can be identified in the American population by this simple genetic test.
Due to repeatedly described incidents in patients with undiscovered hereditary fructose intolerance, the application of fructose and sorbit-containing parenteral solutions is a topic vehemently discussed. This paper presents a survey of the literature dealing with the inborn defect of fructose-1-phosphate aldolase. The physiology and pathophysiology of fructose metabolism are described as well as the clinical appearance and diagnostic possibilities. The acute course of a fructose incompatibility is determined by a threatening decrease in the blood glucose level, which is attributed to the inhibition of several enzymes of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis by an intracellular accumulation of fructose-1-phosphate. Within hours a global functional breakdown of organs, which normally have the enzyme, occurs. The impairment of the liver function finds expression in a severe coagulopathy, the damage of the kidney leads to anuria. In chronic oral fructose supply, damage of the liver and small intestinal mucosa with corresponding gastrointestinal symptoms determine the clinical course. Concerning diagnosis, contrary to the liver biopsy and the fructose tolerance test, the mucosal biopsy with determination of fructose-1-phosphate aldolase activity has the advantage of greater specificity and is better tolerated by the patient. A total abstinence to fructose and sorbitol-containing solutions is not considered to be necessary when the rarity of the illness is taken into account and certain precautions are taken. These include a specific anamnesis of nutrition as well as a total abstinence from fructose and sorbitol in infants and in the unconscious patient. For clinical routine a simple fructose tolerance test is suggested.
To investigate the molecular basis of hereditary fructose intolerance, we have studied 12 British patients, all of whom were found to carry a single mutation in the gene coding for aldolase B. We have estimated the frequency of this lesion, termed A149P, amongst affected individuals in the population and predict that a diagnosis may be made non-invasively in more than 83 per cent of cases by demonstrating the presence of this allele. Genetic diagnosis and detection of asymptomatic carriers of the disease may be achieved by the specific amplification of DNA derived from mouthwash samples followed by hybridization to allele-specific oligonucleotides.