Gene Found for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease: Charcot-Marie-Tooth disorder, one of the most common inherited neurological disorders, affects one in 2,500 people in the U.S. Its symptoms start in early adulthood and include progressive arm and leg pain that leads to difficulty walking and manipulating objects. Using a special strain of mice, new genomic technologies, and information from the mouse and human genome sequences, researchers rapidly identified a mutation that causes a subtype of the disease. Knowledge of the specific gene defect will enable development of a DNA test to confirm the diagnosis in patients and predict risk for family members.
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