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ORPHA:508093

MEPAN syndrome

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Autosomal recessive childhood-onset dystonia, DYT29 type · Childhood-onset generalized dystonia-optic atrophy syndrome · DYT29 · Dystonia 29 · Mitochondrial enoyl CoA reductase protein-associated neurodegeneration syndrome

Publications

1,279

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

763

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

MECR

Strong

Readiness

3/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare genetic neurological disorder characterized by childhood-onset dystonia with distinctive MRI changes in the basal ganglia, and optic atrophy developing either immediately or within a few years after the appearance of dystonia. Additional symptoms include chorea and other movement disorders, dysarthria, or nystagmus, among others. Motor disability progresses gradually, while cognitive function is relatively spared.

How rare: <1 / 1 000 000 — fewer than one in a million. In a city the size of Kolkata, that might mean on the order of fifteen people.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (3)

DYTOABG · dystonia, childhood-onset, with optic atrophy and basal ganglia abnormalities · dystonia, childhood-onset, with optic atrophy and basal ganglia abnormalities; DYTOABG

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

3/6 stages with a signal

No matched interventional trial; the gene is known and literature exists — preclinical or natural-history work may still be the practical next step.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Strong — MECR

  2. LiteraturePresent

    1,279 matched papers (810 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    64 HPO annotations (e.g. Rigidity; Hypotonia; Paroxysmal dyskinesia) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationNot found

    No FDA or EMA orphan-drug designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name Source

  6. Interventional trialNot found

    No matched interventional trial under our ClinicalTrials.gov rules

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Yes — we know a specific gene responsible (MECR).

GenCC classification: Strong.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

64

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0015003

  • Rigidity
  • Hypotonia
  • Paroxysmal dyskinesia
  • Limb joint contracture
  • Esophoria

Showing 5 of 64 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

No designation matched this disease via UMLS or preferred name on the FDA OOPD mirror or EMA orphan register. Absence here is not proof that none exists under another wording.

Open Targets candidates

No drugs or clinical candidates returned for this Mondo ID on Open Targets.

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

No CTD chemical associations returned for this Mondo ID.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

1,279

1,279 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

1,279 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

810 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 127 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

763

Distinct author names in 127 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

No interventional trial matched this name; these authors publish on it in the sampled literature — a practical starting point for contact.

  1. 01
    Albanese A4 papers · 2026

    Department of Neurology IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital Rozzano Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Defazio G4 papers · 2020

    Institute of Neurology, University of Bari, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Jinnah HA4 papers · 2026

    Departments of Neurology, Human Genetics and Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Sharma N4 papers · 2023

    Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Hallett M3 papers · 2026

    Human Motor Control Section, NINDS, NIH, Building 10, Room 7D37, 10 Center Dr MSC 1428, Bethesda, MD, 20892-1428, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Kaji R3 papers · 2022

    Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medicine, Tokushima University, Tokushima 770-8503, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Nowinski SM3 papers · 2025

    Department of Biochemistry, Salt Lake City, United States.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Stephen CD3 papers · 2023

    Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Wang L3 papers · 2025

    Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, College of Science, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Abbruzzese G2 papers · 1999
    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

0

interventional trials for this specific condition

No interventional trial testing a treatment matched this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov (observational studies and pan-disease registries are listed separately when present).

Data as of 11 September 2026 · last trial check 11 September 2026

No matched interventional trials. This is true for 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator (5501 of 7126). Here are the researchers publishing on it.

low confidence · 38.6th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

No interventional trial testing a treatment was found for this specific condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov.

See who's working on it — people publishing on this disease are often the practical next contact when no trial is listed.

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 0 · after dedupe 0 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 0 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for MEPAN syndrome — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

("MEPAN syndrome" OR "Autosomal recessive childhood-onset dystonia, DYT29 type" OR "Childhood-onset generalized dystonia-optic atrophy syndrome" OR "DYT29" OR "Dystonia 29" OR "Mitochondrial enoyl CoA reductase protein-associated neurodegeneration syndrome" OR "DYTOABG" OR "dystonia, childhood-onset, with optic atrophy and basal ganglia abnormalities" OR "dystonia, childhood-onset, with optic atrophy and basal ganglia abnormalities; DYTOABG") OR ("MECR" OR "MECR syndrome" OR "MECR-related" OR "MEPAN" OR "MEPAN-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"MEPAN syndrome" OR "Autosomal recessive childhood-onset dystonia, DYT29 type" OR "Childhood-onset generalized dystonia-optic atrophy syndrome" OR "DYT29" OR "Dystonia 29" OR "Mitochondrial enoyl CoA reductase protein-associated neurodegeneration syndrome" OR "DYTOABG" OR "dystonia, childhood-onset, with optic atrophy and basal ganglia abnormalities" OR "dystonia, childhood-onset, with optic atrophy and basal ganglia abnormalities; DYTOABG"

Study-type breakdown: 0 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is short or not clearly distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (1279) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T17:56:06.039Z