You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
PostScript
Letter
The clinical and neuroanatomical phenotype of FUS associated frontotemporal lobar degeneration
  1. Jonathan D Rohrer1,
  2. Tammaryn Lashley3,
  3. Janice Holton3,
  4. Tamas Revesz3,
  5. Hazel Urwin2,
  6. Adrian M Isaacs2,
  7. Nick C Fox1,
  8. Martin N Rossor1,
  9. Jason Warren1
  1. 1Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
  2. 2MRC Prion Unit, Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
  3. 3Queen Square Brain Bank, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr J D Warren, Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK; warren{at}dementia.ion.ucl.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.2010.214437

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is genetically and pathologically heterogeneous. Until recently, two main pathological subtypes were recognised, defined by the presence of tau positive or tau negative, ubiquitin positive neuronal inclusions. However, the identification of TDP-43 as a major constituent of ubiquitinated inclusions led to descriptions of a smaller subgroup of patients with ubiquitin positive but TDP-43 negative pathology. Recently, the major constituent of the inclusions in such cases has been identified as FUS (‘fused-in sarcoma’) protein, implicated in RNA processing.1

    We retrospectively reviewed all cases ascertained via a tertiary level cognitive disorders clinic between 1992 and 2009 with a clinical diagnosis of FTLD and neuropathological confirmation (post mortem or brain biopsy during life). Five of 100 patients were found to have FUS pathology (FUS1 with neuronal intermediate filament inclusion disease and four other cases with atypical FTLD with ubiquitin-positive inclusions).

    Case reports

    FUS1 was previously described as having young onset sporadic Pick's disease.2 The patient presented with an 18 month history of progressive behavioural change with apathy, social withdrawal, reduced speech and fatuous giggling. The patient had also developed increased difficulty using their hands for everyday tasks. On examination the patient was distractible with impoverished, dysarthric speech and bilateral limb apraxia but no other neurological signs. Neuropsychometry demonstrated executive impairment and dyscalculia but normal naming and visuoperceptual skills. The patient was unable to perform tests of episodic memory. The condition deteriorated over the next 3 months with worsening apathy, development of urinary incontinence and falls. The patient was subsequently lost to follow-up. …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Funding This work was undertaken at UCLH/UCL who received a proportion of funding from the Department of Health's NIHR Biomedical Research Centres funding scheme. The Dementia Research Centre is an Alzheimer's Research Trust Coordinating Centre. This work was also funded by the Medical Research Council UK. JW has received research support from the Wellcome Trust (Intermediate Clinical Fellowship).

    • Competing interests None.

    • Patient consent Obtained.

    • Ethics approval This study was conducted with the approval of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery local ethics committee.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.