Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have discovered a new inherited disorder that causes severe mental retardation and liver dysfunction. The disease, adenosine kinase deficiency, is caused by mutations in the ADK gene, which codes for the enzyme adenosine kinase. The findings, which are presented in the American Journal of Human Genetics, were made possible through the detailed biochemical examination of a Swedish family in which two children suffered from progressive brain damage and abnormal liver function that could not be traced to known mechanisms.
