Abstract

OSORIO, José Henry; RIBES, Antonia  and  LLUCH, Montse. Diagnostic implementation of very long chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency. Acta bioquím. clín. latinoam. [online]. 2011, vol.45, n.2, pp.257-263. ISSN 0325-2957.

Very long-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (VLCAD) is a homodimer that catalyzes the initial reaction of fatty acid ß-oxidation. The objective of the present study was to analyse the metabolites produced by fibroblasts incubated with tritiated vs. deuterated substrates, as a diagnostic tool for the diagnosis of VLCAD deficiency. A severe depression for oxidizing the tritiated substrates was observed for these patients' fibroblasts, and a characteristic profile for this deficiency was found when incubating fibroblasts with deuterated substrates. The method which evaluates the production of tritiated water is nonspecific as the oxidation of tritiated substrates can be found depressed in other fatty acid ß-oxidation disorders; however this method can suggest VLCAD deficiency if the tritiated water measurement is compared with others findings related to this deficiency. On the other hand the measurement of deuterated metabolites is more specific as a characteristic profile was found for this deficiency showing increased levels of the following organic acids: octanoic, decanoic, dodecenoic, dodecanoic, tetradecenoic, tetradecanoic and hexadecanoic, which is different from other fatty acid ß-oxidation disorders.

Keywords : Very long-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase; ß-oxidation; Fatty acids.

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