Ullrich disease due to deficiency of collagen VI in the sarcolemma.

The authors identified eight patients with Ullrich disease in whom collagen VI was present in the interstitium but was absent from the sarcolemma. By electron microscopy, collagen VI in the interstitium was never linked to the basal lamina. These findings suggest that in these patients it is not the total absence of collagen VI from the muscle but the failure of collagen VI to anchor the basal lamina to the interstitium that is the cause of Ullrich disease. Only one of the patients had a mutation in the collagen VI gene, suggesting that the primary abnormality in most of the patients involved some other molecules.