The immunosuppressant drug azathioprine restrains adipogenesis of muscle Fibro/Adipogenic Progenitors from dystrophic mice by affecting AKT signaling.

ABSTRACT: Fibro/Adipogenic Progenitors (FAPs) define a stem cell population playing a pro-regenerative role after muscle damage. When removed from their natural niche, FAPs readily differentiate into adipocytes or fibroblasts. This digressive differentiation potential, which is kept under tight control in the healthy muscle niche, contributes to fat and scar infiltrations in degenerative myopathies, such as in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Controlling FAP differentiation by means of small molecules may contribute to delay the adverse consequences of the progressive pathological degeneration while offering, at the same time, a wider temporal window for gene therapy and cell-based strategies. In a high content phenotypic screening, we identified the immunosuppressant, azathioprine (AZA) as a nega

SUBMITTER: Reggio A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6416262 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature