[Full-cycle, multidisciplinary and systematic management of citrin deficiency]

Professor Takeyori Saheki's team at Kagoshima University, Japan, published a paper in Nature Genetics in June 1999, pinpointing the pathogenic gene for adult-onset type Ⅱ citrullinemia as SLC25A13 and naming the protein product encoded by this gene as citrin. Over the past 25 years, the researches have made positive progress on the pathophysiological mechanism, clinical phenotype, molecular diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of citrin deficiency (CD) as an autosomal recessive genetic disease. Currently, three age-dependent clinical phenotypes of CD have been found, namely neonatal intrahepatic cholestasis caused by citrin deficiency, failure to thrive and dyslipidemia caused by citrin deficiency, and adult-onset type Ⅱ citrullinemia. Although relevant internal medicine drugs are being researched and developed while liver transplantation has been used for the treatment of CD patients, scientific dietary therapy remains the foundation, core, and key for the management of this disease. Furthermore, CD management involves the full life cycle of patients, requiring the joint efforts of basic and clinical medicine as well as systematic articulation at multi-levels, such as the parents, family, and society. By full-cycle, multidisciplinary, and systematic management, it is an achievable goal for CD patients to learn, work, and live in a healthy manner.