Neonatal Cerebellar Cortical Degeneration (NCCD)

c.5921del8bpTCAAGGCA

Genetic Disease/Disorder

Neonatal cerebellar cortical degeneration (NCCD) is a neurological disease affecting puppies. Signs include: slower and less coordinated puppies than littermates, falling, inability to regulate gait. Age of onset 3 weeks. This disease is considered to have slow or limited progression, but is also currently incurable.

Neonatal cerebellar cortical degeneration is a neurodegenerative disease described in several canine breeds including the Beagle. Affected Beagles are unable to ambulate normally from the onset of walking and the main pathological findings include Purkinje cell loss with swollen dendritic processes. Previous reports suggest an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance...Previous studies have shown that ?-III spectrin is critical for Purkinje cell development, and the absence of this protein can lead to cell damage through excitotoxicity, consistent with the observed Purkinje cell loss, degeneration of dendritic processes and associated neurological dysfunction in this Beagle...(Foreman et al, 2012)

Forman, O.P., De Risio, L., Stewart, J., Mellersh, C.S., Beltran, E. : Genome-wide mRNA sequencing of a single canine cerebellar cortical degeneration case leads to the identification of a disease associated SPTBN2 mutation. BMC Genet 13:55, 2012. Pubmed reference: 22781464. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2156-13-55.

Beagle