| Modification Notes |
Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) is a heterogeneous pleiotropic genetic disorder characterized by obesity, photoreceptor degeneration, polydactyly, hypogenitalism, renal abnormalities, developmental delay, diabetes, hypertension and congenital heart defects. BBS genes map to eight genetic loci and encode eight proteins, BBS1-BBS8. Five BBS genes encode basal body or cilia proteins, suggesting that BBS is a ciliary dysfunction disorder. Mutations in BBS8, also designated tetratricopeptide repeat protein (TTC8), probably account for only a minority (2%) of BBS families, underlining the difficulty of genotyping heterogeneous conditions. The identification of BBS8 provides the key to the pathogenesis of the condition as a primary ciliary disorder. |