SH3TC2-related hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy (SH3TC2-HMSN) is a demyelinating neuropathy characterized by severe spine deformities (scoliosis or kyphoscoliosis) and foot deformities (pes cavus, pes planus, or pes valgus) that typically present in the first decade of life or early adolescence. Other findings can include cranial nerve involvement (most commonly tongue involvement, facial weakness/paralysis, hearing impairment, dysarthria) and respiratory problems.

Congenital hypomyelinating neuropathy (CHN) is characterized clinically by onset of hypotonia at birth, areflexia, distal muscle weakness, and very slow nerve conduction velocities (often less than 10 m/s). Warner et al. (1997, 1998) noted that pathologic findings on sural nerve biopsies show hypomyelination of most or all fibers. Based on these findings, CHN is considered to be a result of congenital impairment in myelin formation. There has been some controversy and difficulty in differentiating congenital hypomyelination from Dejerine-Sottas syndrome (DSS; 145900) because there is considerable overlap in clinical presentation. Based on pathologic findings of sural nerve biopsies (the absence of active myelin breakdown and the paucity of the onion bulbs in CHN and the presence of demyelination/remyelination and an abundance of well-organized onion bulbs in DSS; see Balestrini et al., 1991), CHN is considered to result from a congenital impairment in myelin formation, whereas DSS is thought to be due to aberrant demyelination and subsequent remyelination of the peripheral nerve. There is also variation in the prognosis of patients diagnosed with CHN. In patients with CHN, Harati and Butler (1985) showed correlation of morbidity and mortality with the presence/absence of onion bulbs: patients with few onion bulbs died in early infancy, usually because of difficulty in swallowing and respiration after birth. Patients with atypical onion bulbs survived but were affected with severe motor and sensory impairment. These differences in outcome may represent genetic heterogeneity such that mutations in essential early myelin gene(s) cause a severe phenotype, whereas mutations in other, possibly later acting gene(s), such as MPZ, lead to a less severe outcome. Genetic Heterogeneity of Congenital Hypomyelinating Neuropathy See also CHN2 (618184), caused by mutation in the MPZ gene (159440) on chromosome 1q23; and CHN3 (618186), caused by mutation in the CNTNAP1 gene (602346) on chromosome 17q21.

Blau syndrome is characterized by the triad of granulomatous arthritis, uveitis, and dermatitis. First described in 1985, it was considered to be distinct from sarcoidosis due to the early age of onset and autosomal dominant inheritance pattern. Published reports of sporadic cases of children with 'early-onset sarcoidosis' (EOS) with granulomatous involvement of different organs, primarily affecting joints, eyes, and skin, were suspected to represent the same disorder because the patients' characteristics were nearly identical. Subsequently, identical NOD2 mutations were identified in patients with Blau syndrome as well as in patients diagnosed with EOS, confirming earlier suspicions that they represented the same disease (summary by Borzutzky et al., 2010). Unlike older children diagnosed with sarcoidosis, these patients have no apparent pulmonary involvement; however, the disease is progressive and may result in severe complications such as blindness and/or joint destruction (Shetty and Gedalia, 1998).