ClinVar Genomic variation as it relates to human health

Toe Walking has various causes, ranging from idiopathic or habitual reasons to an underlying neuromuscular disease. The most observed form of toe walking is idiopathic toe walking (ITW) - a diagnosis of exclusion. ITW occurs in about 5% of children after their second birthday and is a common problem in pediatric orthopedics. In about 70% of these cases, there is spontaneous remission within six months of the onset of ITW. If the toe walk persists, one can assume the presence of a non-idiopathic form of toe walk (n-ITW). In n-ITW, the causes of the abnormal gait are neurological or myogenic. Differential diagnoses such as infantile cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, spinal amyotrophy and hereditary motor-sensory neuropathy as well as rare metabolic disorders of the musculature must be considered (Pomarino et al., 2018). In our clinical ITW consultation, we screen children with n-ITW for a genetic form of tiptoe gait using next generation sequencing for gene variants in 49 genes. These are genes in which gene variants can lead to neuromuscular diseases in which an association with toe-tapping gait has been reported or can be suspected due to patients’ clinical symptoms. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study in which several patients with toe walking displayed heterozygosity for pathogenic or likely pathogenic PYGM mutations and mild symptoms of the metabolic muscle disease McArdle. The findings of our research are in line with recently published observations in heterozygous family members patients with McArdle disease. We should mention that some of the patients in our cohort harbored heterozygous variants in other genes of our gene panel. However, the numbers in this study were too small to workout any resulting combined genetic effects. It is concluded that genetic conditions can contribute to the development of toe walking. Apparently, even a slight genetic weakening of the muscles can lead to changes to the gait pattern. Future studies must show how the pathomechanism can be explained for the PYGM variants and whether there are new therapeutic approaches to be developed based on this research.