A 6-month-old girl with vomiting, hypotonia and motor retardation was found to have elevated blood lactate, pyruvate, and branched chain amino acids associated with ketoglutaric aciduria. The combination of a congenital lactic acidosis with a variant form of maple syrup urine disease and ketoglutaric aciduria suggested a defect of a single component, common to pyruvate dehydrogenase, to branched chain ketoacid dehydrogenase, and to alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase. Dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase is the common component (E3). The three enzyme activities and the E3 component activity were found to be reduced in liver and cultured fibroblasts, thus confirming that a single defect of this component can result in a multiple deficiency involving several oxidative decarboxylation reactions.