Abstract
Serine deficiency disorders are a new group of neurometabolic diseases resulting from a deficiency in one of the three enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway of L-serine. Deficiency of the enzyme 3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (3-PGDH), which catalyzes the first step in the biosynthetic pathway, leads to congenital microcephaly, severe psychomotor retardation, and intractable seizures. We report a 4 1/2-year-old boy who presented with congenital microcephaly, psychomotor retardation, hypertonia, strabismus, and drug-resistant seizures due to 3-PGDH deficiency. His seizures responded to L-serine and glycine supplementation only. This potentially treatable disease should be borne in mind in patients with congenital microcephaly, psychomotor retardation and seizures. A timely diagnosis based on the detection of low cerebrospinal fluid levels of L-serine and glycine is expected to further increase the success of L-serine and glycine supplementation in these patients.
Copyright and license
Copyright © 2009 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.