[Not only optic neuropathy: new molecular and clinical aspects of OPA1 gene mutations]

Autosomal dominant optic nerve atrophy is the most frequent dominantly inherited optic neuropathy. The main causesof the disease are OPA1 gene mutations, which are detected in about 60% of patients. Encoded by the nuclear genome the OPA1 protein plays an important role in a wide variety of processes crucial to the proper functioning of mitochondria, the role of OPAl in many of them has been discovered recently. A detailed study of patients with mutations in the OPA1 gene has shown that about 20% of them present symptoms of a multiple system disease, which may include hearing loss, progressive external ophthalmoplegia, ataxia, myopathy, peripheral neuropathy, spastic paraparesis and multiple sclerosis-like illness. This clinical manifestation is difficult to differentiate from other neurodegenerative diseases, that is why genetic testing is very important in order to determine the molecular basis of the disease in these patients.