Probable metachromatic leukodystrophy/pseudodeficiency compound heterozygote at the arylsulfatase A locus with neurological and psychiatric symptomatology.

Metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) is an autosomal recessive progressive demyelination disorder caused by the deficiency of arylsulfatase A (ASA). However, there exist individuals with low ASA activity without clinical symptoms. This state is described as ASA pseudodeficiency (PD). A number of patients with low ASA activity and various neuropsychiatric symptoms have been observed. It is controversial to what extent low ASA activity predisposes for neurological and/or psychiatric symptomatology. Therefore, persons with low ASA activity who were collected from a large-scale screening among neuropsychiatric patients and healthy controls are presently being extensively evaluated using biochemical, genetic, and clinical methods. Here we present a female patient, who had been first hospitalized with the diagnosis encephalomyelitis disseminata. Her ASA activity determined in fibroblast extracts is intermediate between adult MLD and PD. Sulfatide degradation in cultured fibroblasts is diminished. The subunit pattern obtained after SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting was determined in the index patient and 2 sibs. It is compatible with a compound genotype ASA-/ASAp in the index case. It appears probable that in this patient low ASA activity leads to the accumulation of sulfatide and either causes the appearance of neuropsychiatric symptoms or at least contributes to the demyelination process.