Dataset Information

Sulthiame impairs mitochondrial function in vitro and may trigger onset of visual loss in Leber hereditary optic neuropathy.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is the most common mitochondrial disorder and characterized by acute or subacute painless visual loss. Environmental factors reported to trigger visual loss in LHON mutation carriers include smoking, heavy intake of alcohol, raised intraocular pressure, and some drugs, including several carbonic anhydrase inhibitors. The antiepileptic drug sulthiame (STM) is effective especially in focal seizures, particularly in benign epilepsy of childhood with centrotemporal spikes, and widely used in pediatric epileptology. STM is a sulfonamide derivate and an inhibitor of mammalian carbonic anhydrase isoforms I-XIV.

Results

We describe two unrelated patients, an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, with cryptogenic focal epilepsy, who suffered binocular (subject #1) or monocular (subject #2) visual loss in close temporal connection with starting antiepileptic pharmacotherapy with STM. In both subjects, visual loss was due to LHON. We used real-time respirometry in fibroblasts derived from LHON patients carrying the same mitochondrial mutations as our two subjects to investigate the effect of STM on oxidative phosphorylation. Oxygen consumption rate in fibroblasts from a healthy control was not impaired by STM compared with a vehicle control. In contrast, fibroblasts carrying the m.14484T>C or the m.3460G>A LHON mutation displayed a drastic reduction of the respiration rate when treated with STM compared to vehicle control.

Conclusions

Our observations point to a causal relationship between STM treatment and onset or worsening of visual failure in two subjects with LHON rather than pure coincidence. We conclude that antiepileptic medication with STM may pose a risk for visual loss in LHON mutation carriers and should be avoided in these patients.

SUBMITTER: Reinert MC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7860214 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Sulthiame impairs mitochondrial function in vitro and may trigger onset of visual loss in Leber hereditary optic neuropathy.

Reinert Marie-Christine MC Pacheu-Grau David D Catarino Claudia B CB Klopstock Thomas T Ohlenbusch Andreas A Schittkowski Michael M Wilichowski Ekkehard E Rehling Peter P Brockmann Knut K

Orphanet journal of rare diseases 20210204 1

<h4>Background</h4>Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) is the most common mitochondrial disorder and characterized by acute or subacute painless visual loss. Environmental factors reported to trigger visual loss in LHON mutation carriers include smoking, heavy intake of alcohol, raised intraocular pressure, and some drugs, including several carbonic anhydrase inhibitors. The antiepileptic drug sulthiame (STM) is effective especially in focal seizures, particularly in benign epilepsy of chil ...[more]

PMID: 33541401

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Project description:PurposeLeber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), a maternally inherited disorder, results from point mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). MtDNA is highly polymorphic in nature with very high mutation rate, 10-17 fold higher as compared to nuclear genome. Identification of new mtDNA sequence variations is necessary to establish a clean link with human disease. Thus this study was aimed to assess or evaluate LHON patients for novel mtDNA sequence variations.Materials and methodsTwenty LHON patients were selected from the neuro-ophthalmology clinic of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. DNA was isolated from whole blood samples. The entire coding region of the mitochondrial genome was amplified by PCR in 20 patients and 20 controls. For structural analysis (molecular modeling and simulation) the MODELER 9.2 program in Discovery Studio (DS 2.0) was used.ResultsMtDNA sequencing revealed a total of 47 nucleotide variations in the 20 LHON patients and 29 variations in 20 controls. Of 47 changes in patients 21.2% (10/47) were nonsynonymous and the remaining 78.72% (37/47) were synonymous. Five nonsynonymous changes, including primary LHON mutations (NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1 [ND1]:p.A52T, NADH dehydrogenase subunit 6 [ND6]:p.M64V, adenosine triphosphate [ATP] synthase subunit a (F-ATPase protein 6) [ATPase6]:p.M181T, NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4 [ND4]:p.R340H, and cytochrome B [CYB]:p.F181L), were found to be pathogenic. A greater number of changes were present in complex I (53.19%; 25/47), followed by complex III (19.14%; 9/47), then complex IV (19.14%; 9/47), then complex V (8.5%; 4/47). Nonsynonymous variations may impair respiratory chain and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) pathways, which results in low ATP production and elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. Oxidative stress is the underlying etiology in various diseases and also plays a crucial role in LHON.ConclusionsThis study describes the role of mtDNA sequence variations in LHON patients. Primary LHON mutations of mtDNA are main variants leading to LHON, but mutations in other mitochondrial genes may also play an important role in pathogenesis of LHON as indicated in the present study. Certain alleles in certain haplogroups have protective or deleterious roles and hence there is a need to analyze a large number of cases for correlating phenotype and disease severity with mutation and mtDNA haplogroups.

Dataset Information

Sulthiame impairs mitochondrial function in vitro and may trigger onset of visual loss in Leber hereditary optic neuropathy.

Background

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Sulthiame impairs mitochondrial function in vitro and may trigger onset of visual loss in Leber hereditary optic neuropathy.

Similar Datasets

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