HOMOCYSTINURIA

hereditary metabolic disorder involving methionine, a sulfur-containing essential amino acid. The metabolic sequence of methionine normally begins with its stepwise conversion to homocysteine, cystathionine, and cysteine, successively, each step being carried out by a specific organic catalyst, or enzyme. In homocystinuria, the defective enzyme is cystathionine synthetase, which normally converts homocysteine to cystathionine. As a result, abnormally high concentrations of homocysteine and its precursor, methionine, are found in the blood plasma. Symptoms of homocystinuria include mental retardation; displacement of the lenses of the eyes; shuffling gait; fine, sparse hair; skeletal deformations; and sometimes fatal episodic obstruction of blood vessels with clots. The joints tend to have restricted mobility rather than hyperextensibility. Dietary therapy, with methionine restriction and cystine supplementation (cystine is the oxidized form of cysteine) is apparently beneficial. Homocystinuria is believed to be transmitted recessively: unaffected carriers of the trait who mate can expect, on the basis of chance, to have one affected offspring out of four births.