RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS

ORPHA:71278

Congenital brain dysgenesis due to glutamine synthetase deficiency

high confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Inherited GS deficiency · Inherited glutamine synthetase deficiency

Query health: suspect — Only one of 3 strategies returned hits (phrase).

Publications

5

7th percentile

Trials

0

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

25

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

GLUL

Definitive

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare neurometabolic disease characterized by onset of severe epileptic with brain malformations (including cerebral and cerebellar atrophy, white matter abnormalities, delayed gyration or complete agyria, and thin corpus callosum), generalized , and lack of normal development. Additional features include facial dysmorphism and necrolytic erythema of the skin. Biochemical hallmarks are decreased levels of glutamine in body fluids and chronic . Death may occur in the early post-natal period due to multiple organ failure.

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)

congenital brain dysgenesis due to glutamine synthetase deficiency · inherited GS deficiency · inherited glutamine synthetase deficiency

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.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Definitive — GLUL

  2. LiteraturePresent

    5 matched papers (1 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  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 (GLUL).

GenCC classification: Definitive.

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?

5

5 papers have ever been indexed under this name. For scale, breast cancer has over 700,000. Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

5 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 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 7th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 5 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

25

Distinct author names in 5 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
    Häberle J2 papers · 2016

    Division of Metabolism and Children's Research Center, University Children's Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. Johannes.Haeberle@kispi.uzh.ch

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Ben-Omran T1 paper · 2012
    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Buniatian GH1 paper · 2009
    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Burge CB1 paper · 2024

    Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. Electronic address: cburge@mit.edu.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Chaudhry FA1 paper · 2012
    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Danielyan L1 paper · 2009

    Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University Hospital of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Diez-Fernandez C1 paper · 2016

    Division of Metabolism and Children's Research Center, University Children's Hospital, Steinwiesstr. 75, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland. Carmen.diez@kispi.uzh.ch.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Findlay SD1 paper · 2024

    Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Gebhardt R1 paper · 2009
    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Gemperle-Britschgi C1 paper · 2016

    Division of Metabolism and Children's Research Center, University Children's Hospital, Steinwiesstr. 75, 8032 Zurich, Switzerland. Corinne.gemperle@kispi.uzh.ch.

    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 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.

high 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.

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 2026-07-26

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.

"Congenital brain dysgenesis due to glutamine synthetase deficiency" OR "Inherited GS deficiency" OR "Inherited glutamine synthetase deficiency"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Glutamine deficiency, congenital

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

"Congenital brain dysgenesis due to glutamine synthetase deficiency" OR "Inherited GS deficiency" OR "Inherited glutamine synthetase deficiency" OR "Glutamine deficiency, congenital" OR "GLUL" OR "disorder of glutamine metabolism"

Recall-expansion terms: GLUL, disorder of glutamine metabolism

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

Query health: suspect — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh, recall-expansion; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T01:40:54.279Z