Molecular genetic classification of central nervous system malformations

Traditional schemes of classifying nervous system malformations are based on descriptive morphogenesis of anatomic processes of ontogenesis, such as neurulation, neuroblast migration, and axonal pathfinding. This proposal is a first attempt to incorporate the recent molecular genetic data that explain programming of development etiologically. A scheme based purely on genetic mutations would not be practical, in part because only in a few dysgeneses are the specific defects known, but also because several genes might be involved sequentially and many genes inhibit or augment the expression of others. The same genes serve different functions at different stages and are involved in multiple organ systems. Some complex malformations, such as holoprosencephaly, result from several unrelated defective genes. Finally, a pure genetic classification would be too inflexible to incorporate some anatomic criteria. The basis for the proposed scheme is, therefore, disturbances in patterns of genetic expression; polarity gradients of the axes of the neural tube (eg, upregulation or downregulation of genetic influences); segmentation (eg, deletions of specific neuromeres, ectopic expression); mutations that cause change in cell lineage (eg, dysplastic gangliocytoma of cerebellum, myofiber differentiation within brain); and specific genes or molecules that mediate neuroblast migration in its early (eg, filamin-1), middle (eg, LIS1, double-cortin), or late course (eg, reelin, L1-CAM). The proposed scheme undoubtedly will undergo many future revisions, but it provides a starting point using currently available data.