Inherited platelet disorders.

Inherited platelet disorders may be the cause of bleeding symptoms of varying severity as platelets fail to fulfil their haemostatic role after vessel injury. Platelet disorders may be difficult to diagnose (and are likely to be misdiagnosed) and raise problems in therapy and management. This review explores the clinical and molecular genetic phenotype of several inherited disorders. Inherited platelet disorders can be classified according to their platelet defects: receptor defects (adhesion or aggregation), secretion disorder, and cytoskeleton defects. The best characterized platelet receptor defects are Glanzmann thrombasthenia (integrin αIIbß3 defect) and Bernard-Soulier syndrome (defect of GPIb/IX/V). Detailed case reports of patients suffering from Glanzmann thrombasthenia (GT) or Bernard-Soulier syndrome (BSS) showing the bleeding diathesis as well as investigation of platelet aggregation/agglutination and platelet receptor expression will complement this review. In addition, Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome (HPS) as an important defect of δ-granule secretion is extensively described together with a case report of a patient suffering from HPS type 1.

Neonatal progeria: increased ratio of progerin to lamin A leads to progeria of the newborn.

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is an important model disease for premature ageing. Affected children appear healthy at birth, but develop the first symptoms during their first year of life. They die at an average age of 13 years, mostly because of myocardial infarction or stroke. Classical progeria is caused by the heterozygous point mutation c.1824C>T in the LMNA gene, which activates a cryptic splice site. The affected protein cannot be processed correctly to mature lamin A, but is modified into a farnesylated protein truncated by 50 amino acids (progerin). Three more variations in LMNA result in the same mutant protein, but different grades of disease severity. We describe a patient with the heterozygous LMNA mutation c.1821G>A, leading to neonatal progeria with death in the first year of life. Intracellular lamin A was downregulated in the patient's fibroblasts and the ratio of progerin to lamin A was increased when compared with HGPS. It is suggestive that the ratio of farnesylated protein to mature lamin A determines the disease severity in progeria.