National Center for Advancing and Translational Sciences Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center, a program of the National Center for Advancing and Translational Sciences

Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis


Other Names:
JPLS; Primary lateral sclerosis, juvenile; PLS juvenile
Categories:
Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis is a rare disorder characterized by progressive weakness and stiffness of muscles in the arms, legs, and face. This disorder damages motor neurons, which are specialized nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control muscle movement. Symptoms begin in early childhood and progress over a period of 15 to 20 years. Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis is caused by mutations in the ALS2 gene. It is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern.[1]
Last updated: 3/4/2011
Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis is a rare disorder characterized by progressive weakness and stiffness of muscles in the arms, legs, and face. Symptoms of juvenile primary lateral sclerosis begin in early childhood and progress over a period of 15 to 20 years. Early symptoms include clumsiness, muscle spasms, weakness and stiffness in the legs, and difficulty with balance. As symptoms progress, they include weakness and stiffness in the arms and hands, slurred speech, drooling, difficulty swallowing, and an inability to walk.[1]
Last updated: 3/4/2011

This table lists symptoms that people with this disease may have. For most diseases, symptoms will vary from person to person. People with the same disease may not have all the symptoms listed. This information comes from a database called the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) . The HPO collects information on symptoms that have been described in medical resources. The HPO is updated regularly. Use the HPO ID to access more in-depth information about a symptom.

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Medical Terms Other Names
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HPO ID
80%-99% of people have these symptoms
Abnormal pyramidal sign 0007256
Abnormal upper motor neuron morphology
Abnormal shape of upper motor neuron
0002127
Gait imbalance
Abnormality of balance
Abnormality of equilibrium
Imbalanced walk
[ more ] 		0002141
Hyperreflexia
Increased reflexes
0001347
Muscle weakness
Muscular weakness
0001324
Pseudobulbar behavioral symptoms 0002193
Spastic gait
Spastic walk
0002064
Spastic tetraparesis 0001285
30%-79% of people have these symptoms
Dysphagia
Poor swallowing
Swallowing difficulties
Swallowing difficulty
[ more ] 		0002015
Loss of speech 0002371
Spastic dysarthria 0002464
5%-29% of people have these symptoms
Abnormality of the bladder 0000014
Sensory neuropathy
Damage to nerves that sense feeling
0000763
Skeletal muscle atrophy
Muscle degeneration
Muscle wasting
[ more ] 		0003202
Percent of people who have these symptoms is not available through HPO
Autosomal recessive inheritance 0000007
Babinski sign 0003487
Cerebral cortical atrophy
Decrease in size of the outer layer of the brain due to loss of brain cells
0002120
Childhood onset
Symptoms begin in childhood
0011463
Difficulty in tongue movements 0000183
Juvenile onset
Signs and symptoms begin before 15 years of age
0003621
Pallor 0000980
Saccadic smooth pursuit 0001152
Slow progression
Signs and symptoms worsen slowly with time
0003677
Spasticity of facial muscles 0002491
Spasticity of pharyngeal muscles 0002501
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Last updated: 7/1/2020
Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis is caused by mutations in the ALS2 gene. The ALS2 gene provides instructions for making a protein called alsin. Alsin is abundant in motor neurons, but its function is not fully understood. Mutations in the ALS2 gene alter the instructions for producing alsin. As a result, alsin is unstable and decays rapidly, or it is disabled and cannot function properly. It is unclear how the loss of functional alsin protein damages motor neurons and causes juvenile primary lateral sclerosis.[1]
Last updated: 3/4/2011
Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern, which means both copies of the gene in each cell have mutations. The parents of an individual with an autosomal recessive condition each carry one copy of the mutated gene, but they typically do not show signs and symptoms of the condition.[1]
Last updated: 3/4/2011

Making a diagnosis for a genetic or rare disease can often be challenging. Healthcare professionals typically look at a person’s medical history, symptoms, physical exam, and laboratory test results in order to make a diagnosis. The following resources provide information relating to diagnosis and testing for this condition. If you have questions about getting a diagnosis, you should contact a healthcare professional.

Testing Resources

  • The Genetic Testing Registry (GTR) provides information about the genetic tests for this condition. The intended audience for the GTR is health care providers and researchers. Patients and consumers with specific questions about a genetic test should contact a health care provider or a genetics professional.

If you need medical advice, you can look for doctors or other healthcare professionals who have experience with this disease. You may find these specialists through advocacy organizations, clinical trials, or articles published in medical journals. You may also want to contact a university or tertiary medical center in your area, because these centers tend to see more complex cases and have the latest technology and treatments.

If you can’t find a specialist in your local area, try contacting national or international specialists. They may be able to refer you to someone they know through conferences or research efforts. Some specialists may be willing to consult with you or your local doctors over the phone or by email if you can't travel to them for care.

You can find more tips in our guide, How to Find a Disease Specialist. We also encourage you to explore the rest of this page to find resources that can help you find specialists.

Healthcare Resources

Related diseases are conditions that have similar signs and symptoms. A health care provider may consider these conditions in the table below when making a diagnosis. Please note that the table may not include all the possible conditions related to this disease.

Conditions with similar signs and symptoms from Orphanet
Differential diagnoses include the allelic disorders juvenile amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and infantile-onset ascending hereditary spastic paralysis (see these terms).
Visit the Orphanet disease page for more information.

Research helps us better understand diseases and can lead to advances in diagnosis and treatment. This section provides resources to help you learn about medical research and ways to get involved.

Patient Registry

These resources provide more information about this condition or associated symptoms. The in-depth resources contain medical and scientific language that may be hard to understand. You may want to review these resources with a medical professional.

Where to Start

  • Genetics Home Reference (GHR) contains information on Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis. This website is maintained by the National Library of Medicine.

In-Depth Information

  • GeneReviews provides current, expert-authored, peer-reviewed, full-text articles describing the application of genetic testing to the diagnosis, management, and genetic counseling of patients with specific inherited conditions.
  • The Monarch Initiative brings together data about this condition from humans and other species to help physicians and biomedical researchers. Monarch’s tools are designed to make it easier to compare the signs and symptoms (phenotypes) of different diseases and discover common features. This initiative is a collaboration between several academic institutions across the world and is funded by the National Institutes of Health. Visit the website to explore the biology of this condition.
  • Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) is a catalog of human genes and genetic disorders. Each entry has a summary of related medical articles. It is meant for health care professionals and researchers. OMIM is maintained by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 
  • Orphanet is a European reference portal for information on rare diseases and orphan drugs. Access to this database is free of charge.
  • PubMed is a searchable database of medical literature and lists journal articles that discuss Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis. Click on the link to view a sample search on this topic.

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  1. Juvenile primary lateral sclerosis. Genetics Home Reference (GHR). 2007; http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/juvenile-primary-lateral-sclerosis. Accessed 3/4/2011.