{"id":224105,"date":"2025-10-27T17:05:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/new-rare-genetic-disease-affecting-motor-neuron-and-muscle-control-identified"},"modified":"2025-10-27T17:05:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:05:41","slug":"new-rare-genetic-disease-affecting-motor-neuron-and-muscle-control-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/new-rare-genetic-disease-affecting-motor-neuron-and-muscle-control-identified","title":{"rendered":"New rare genetic disease affecting motor neuron and muscle control identified"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-rare-genetic-disease-affecting-motor-neuron-and-muscle-control-identified3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An international research team, led by Shinghua Ding at the University of Missouri, has identified a previously unknown genetic disease that affects movement and muscle control.<\/p>\n<p>The disease\u2014called Mutation in NAMPT Axonopathy (MINA) syndrome\u2014causes damage to motor neurons, the <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/nerve+cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">nerve cells<\/a> that send signals from the brain and spinal cord to muscles. It\u2019s the result of a rare genetic mutation in a <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/critical+protein\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">critical protein<\/a> known as NAMPT, which helps the body\u2019s cells make and use energy. When this protein doesn\u2019t work as it should, cells can\u2019t produce enough energy to stay healthy.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, this lack of energy causes the cells to weaken and die, and leads to symptoms such as muscle weakness, loss of coordination and foot deformities\u2014which can worsen over time. In severe cases, patients may eventually need a wheelchair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An international research team, led by Shinghua Ding at the University of Missouri, has identified a previously unknown genetic disease that affects movement and muscle control. The disease\u2014called Mutation in NAMPT Axonopathy (MINA) syndrome\u2014causes damage to motor neurons, the nerve cells that send signals from the brain and spinal cord to muscles. It\u2019s the result [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}