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ORPHA:98908

Neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Adipose triglyceride lipase deficiency · NLSDM · Neutral lipid storage disease type M · Neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy without ichthyosis

Publications

3,095

Trials

2

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,096

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

PNPLA2

Definitive

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A form of neutral lipid storage disease characterized by adult onset of slowly muscular weakness of the limbs and axial muscles, and accumulation of lipid droplets in the muscles and leukocytes.

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 (1)

neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy without ichthyosis

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.”

4/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedPresent

    Definitive — PNPLA2

  2. LiteraturePresent

    3,095 matched papers (2,314 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    69 HPO annotations (e.g. Gait disturbance; Cholecystitis; Pineal cyst) 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 trialPresent

    2 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov

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 (PNPLA2).

GenCC classification: Definitive.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

69

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0012545

  • Gait disturbance
  • Cholecystitis
  • Pineal cyst
  • Shoulder girdle muscle weakness
  • Progressive proximal muscle weakness

Showing 5 of 69 — 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?

3,095

3,095 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.

3,095 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).

2,314 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 249 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,096

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Tavian D20 papers · 2026

    Laboratory of Human Molecular Biology and Genetics, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy. daniela.tavia@unicatt.it

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Zechner R20 papers · 2026

    Institute of Molecular Biosciences, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Missaglia S17 papers · 2026

    Laboratory of Cellular Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, CRIBENS, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Angelini C12 papers · 2025

    IRCCS Fondazione San Camillo Hospital, via Alberoni 70, 30100 Venice, Italy. Electronic address: corrado.angelini@unipd.it.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Kobayashi K10 papers · 2023

    Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes Mellitus, Fukuoka University Chikushi Hospital, 1-1-1, Zokumyoin, Chikushino, Fukuoka, 818-8502, Japan.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Zimmermann R10 papers · 2024

    Institute of Molecular Biosciences, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria;

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Schweiger M9 papers · 2026

    BioTechMed-Graz, Graz, Austria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Lass A8 papers · 2022

    Institute of Molecular Biosciences, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Oberer M8 papers · 2023

    Institute of Molecular Biosciences, BioTechMed Graz, University of Graz, A-8010 Graz, Austria.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Haemmerle G7 papers · 2023

    Institute of Molecular Biosciences, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

2

interventional trials for this specific condition

2 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting. 1 trial are registered for neutral lipid storage disease, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.

Data as of 11 September 2026 · last trial check 28 July 2026

2 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 84.5th percentile).

low confidence · 84.5th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

2 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

No currently recruiting studies in the matched set. Open the same search on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Broader category: neutral lipid storage disease

1

Interventional trials for the parent category, exclusive of NCT IDs already counted above. Eligibility for this subtype is not guaranteed.

Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.

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 Neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy — 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.

("Neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy" OR "Adipose triglyceride lipase deficiency" OR "NLSDM" OR "Neutral lipid storage disease type M" OR "Neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy without ichthyosis") OR ("PNPLA2" OR "PNPLA2 syndrome" OR "PNPLA2-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

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

"Neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy" OR "Adipose triglyceride lipase deficiency" OR "NLSDM" OR "Neutral lipid storage disease type M" OR "Neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy without ichthyosis"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 2 interventional · 0 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Parent-category trials query:

"neutral lipid storage disease"

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; 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
  • Publication count (3095) is implausibly high for prevalence class "<1 / 1 000 000" — treat as possible over-matching, not a measure of research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T05:42:07.916Z