ORPHA:564
Meckel syndrome
Also known as: Dysencephalia splanchnocystica · Meckel-Gruber syndrome
Query health: suspect — Only one of 2 strategies returned hits (phrase).
Publications
2,510
Trials
0
Interventional, condition-specific
Researchers
1,109
Distinct authors in sample
Gene link
TXNDC15
Moderate
Readiness
2/6
Stages with a signal
Clinical definition (Orphanet)
A rare, lethal, genetic, multiple anomaly disorder characterized by the triad of brain (mainly occipital encephalocele), large polycystic kidneys, and polydactyly, as well as associated abnormalities that may include cleft lip/palate, cardiac and genital anomalies, central nervous system (CNS) malformations, liver fibrosis, and bone .
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.
Cross-references
Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.
- MONDO:0018921
- UMLS:C0265215
- NCIT:C98978
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.”
2/6 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.
- Gene identifiedPresent
Moderate — TXNDC15
- LiteraturePresent
2,510 matched papers (1,252 in last 10 years) Source
- Phenotype characterisedNot checked
Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO
- Animal modelNot checked
Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance
- Orphan designationNot checked
FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet
- 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?
Probably — there is moderate evidence for TXNDC15.
GenCC classification: Moderate.
Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)
Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.
Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)
Not enriched in this build.
Literature
Is anyone studying this?
2,510
2,510 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=5449) is 41.
2,510 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).
1,252 in the last 10 years · low confidence
Phrase hits: 2,510 · MeSH hits: 0
Who's working on it?
1,109
Distinct author names in 200 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.
- 01Bergmann C5 papers · 2025
Department of Medicine, Nephrology, University Hospital Freiburg, Germany; Medizinische Genetik Mainz, Limbach Genetics, Mainz, Germany.
Papers in Europe PMC - 02Liu L4 papers · 2026
Medical Genetics Center, Maternal and Child Health Hospital of Hubei Province, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei Province, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 03Liu Y4 papers · 2026
Department of Biochemistry, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 04Alkuraya FS3 papers · 2025
Department of Translational Genomics, Center for Genomic Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Papers in Europe PMC - 05Blacque OE3 papers · 2025
UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, UCD Conway Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. Electronic address: oliver.blacque@ucd.ie.
Papers in Europe PMC - 06Geipel A3 papers · 2026
Department of Obstetrics and Prenatal Medicine, University Hospital Bonn, Venusberg-Campus 1, 53127, Bonn, Germany.
Papers in Europe PMC - 07Gembruch U3 papers · 2026
Department of Obstetrics and Prenatal Medicine, University Hospital Bonn, Venusberg-Campus 1, 53127, Bonn, Germany.
Papers in Europe PMC - 08Johnson CA3 papers · 2025
Leeds Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
Papers in Europe PMC - 09Kong F3 papers · 2026
Medical Record Management Department, Maternal and Child Health Hospital of Hunan Province, Changsha, Hunan, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 10Li X3 papers · 2024
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Retinal Functions and Diseases, Tianjin Branch of National Clinical Research Center for Ocular Disease, Eye Institute and School of Optometry, Tianjin Medical University Eye Hospital, Tianjin 300384, China.
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. 1 observational study did — shown below because natural-history and cohort work can be an important step toward a trial.
Data as of 27 July 2026
No matched interventional trials. This is true for 73% of diseases in the trials denominator (5114 of 7003). Here are the researchers publishing on it.
low confidence · 36.5th 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.
Observational and natural-history studies
1 observational study matches this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.
Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting
- NCT01401998·RECRUITING·ARPKD Database Study
Conditions: Hepato/Renal Fibrocystic Disease · Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease · Joubert Syndrome · Bardet Biedl Syndrome·Matched via name phrase
Where to find support
We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:
India — NPRD
Last verified 2026-07-26This 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.
"Meckel syndrome" OR "Dysencephalia splanchnocystica" OR "Meckel-Gruber syndrome"
ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):
"Meckel syndrome" OR "Dysencephalia splanchnocystica" OR "Meckel-Gruber syndrome" OR "TXNDC15"
Recall-expansion terms: TXNDC15
Study-type breakdown: 0 interventional · 1 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.
Query health: suspect — strategies attempted: phrase, recall-expansion; 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 (2510) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity
Ingested 2026-07-26T14:21:33.427Z