Elsevier

Genetics in Medicine

Volume 1, Issue 1, November–December 1998, Pages 34-39
Genetics in Medicine

Original Article
Defective urinary carnitine transport in heterozygotes for primary carnitine deficiency

https://doi.org/10.1097/00125817-199811000-00008Get rights and content
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Abstract

Purpose

Primary carnitine deficiency is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by defective carnitine transport and manifests as nonketotic hypoglycemia or skeletal or heart myopathy.

Methods

To define the mechanisms producing partially reduced plasma carnitine levels in the parents of affected patients, we examined carnitine transport in vivo and in the fibroblasts of a new patient and his heterozygous parents.

Results

Kinetic analysis of carnitine transport in fibroblasts revealed an absence of saturable carnitine transport in the proband's cells and a partially impaired carnitine transport in fibroblasts from both parents, whose cells retained normal Km values toward carnitine (6–9 μM) but reduced Vmax. At steady state, normal fibroblasts accumulated carnitine to a concentration that was up to 80 times the extracellular value (0.5 μM). By contrast, cells from the proband had minimal carnitine accumulation, and cells from both parents had intermediate values of carnitine accumulation. Plasma carnitine levels were slightly below normal in both heterozygous, yet clinically normal, parents and in the paternal grandfather and the maternal grandmother. To define the mechanism producing partially decreased carnitine levels, we studied urinary carnitine losses in heterozygous parents compared with controls. Urinary losses increased linearly (P < 0.05) with plasma carnitine levels in normal controls. When urinary carnitine losses were normalized to plasma carnitine levels, a significant difference was observed between controls and heterozygous individuals (P < 0.01).

Conclusions

These results indicate that fibroblasts from heterozygotes for primary carnitine deficiency have a decreased capacity to accumulate carnitine and that heterozygotes have increased urinary losses, which may contribute to their reduced plasma carnitine levels.

Keywords

Carnitine
fatty acid oxidation
membrane transport
renal resorption

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