Project description:<p>Severe myopathic events occur in 0.1-0.5% of patients taking statins. Although genetic association studies have identified some possibly associated gene loci, these have not been reproducible in additional studies with independent patient cohorts. A more reasonable explanation for susceptibility to statin-induced myopathy is the presence of rare pathogenic variants in genes important for skeletal muscle structure and function. In support of this, we have previously reported an increased incidence of pathogenic variants in genes causing metabolic myopathies in patients with statin-induced myopathy (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16671104">Vladutiu et al.</a>,2006). We also reported a patient with statin myopathy who had an <i>RYR1</i> variant known to be causative of malignant hyperthermia susceptibility (MHS) (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21795085">Vladutiu et al.</a>, 2011). There are a number of genes associated with metabolic myopathies triggered by various factors such as extreme exercise, fasting, extremes in temperature, viral infection and exposure to volatile anesthetics. In addition, many of the genes causing congenital myopathies, myofibrillar myopathies and muscular dystrophies have overlapping phenotypes with these genes. We propose that statins act as an additional trigger inducing myopathic symptoms and many patients with severe statin-induced myopathy have causative genetic variants within similar genes associated with MHS and congenital myopathy. We have analyzed the resultant data using a disease model in which rare pathogenic variants, possibly within multiple genes, are causative of statin-induced myopathy. In this study, we have identified potentially causative genetic variants in greater than 50% of the statin-induced myopathy cases and in particular, rare and possibly pathogenic in the RYR1 and CACNA1S genes were present in 25% of the patient samples studied. Vladutiu, G. D., Simmons, Z., Isackson, P.J., Tarnopolsky, M., Peltier, W.L., Barboi, A.C., Sripathi, N., Wortmann, R.L., Phillips, P.S., (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16671104">2006</a>). "Genetic risk factors associated with lipid-lowering drug-induced myopathies." Muscle Nerve 34: 153-162. Vladutiu, G. D., Isackson, P.J., Kaufman, K., Harley, J.B., Cobb, B., Christopher-Stine, L., Wortmann, R.L, (<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21795085">2011</a>). "Genetic risk for malignant hyperthermia in non-anesthesia-induced myopathies." Mol Genet Metab 104: 167-173. </p>

Project description:Statins, the 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl (HMG)-CoA reductase inhibitors, are widely prescribed for treatment of hypercholesterolemia. Although statins are generally well tolerated, up to ten percent of patients taking statins experience muscle related adverse events. Myalgia, defined as muscle pain without elevated creatinine phosphokinase (CPK) levels, is the most frequent reason for discontinuation of statin therapy. The mechanisms underlying statin-associated myalgia are not clearly understood. To elucidate changes in gene expression associated with statin-induced myalgia, we compared profiles of gene expression in the biopsied skeletal muscle from statin-intolerant patients undergoing statin re-challenge versus those of statin-tolerant controls. A robust separation of statin-intolerant and statin-tolerant cohorts was revealed by Principal Component Analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs). To identify putative gene expression and metabolic pathways that may be perturbed in skeletal muscles of statin intolerant patients, we subjected DEGs to Ingenuity Pathways (IPA) and DAVID (Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery) analyses. The most prominent pathways altered by statins included cellular stress, apoptosis, senescence and DNA repair (TP53, BARD1, Mre11 and RAD51); activation of pro-inflammatory immune response (CXCL12, CST5, POU2F1); protein catabolism, cholesterol biosynthesis, protein prenylation and RAS-GTPase activation (FDFT1, LSS, TP53, UBD, ATF2, H-ras). Based on these data we tentatively conclude that persistent myalgia in response to statins may emanate from cellular stress underpinned by mechanisms of post-inflammatory repair and regeneration. We also posit that this subset of individuals are genetically predisposed to eliciting altered statin metabolism and/or increased end-organ susceptibility that lead to a range of statin-induced myopathies. This mechanistic scenario further bolstered by the discovery that a number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (e.g., SLCO1B1, SLCO2B1 and RYR2) associated with statin myopathy were observed with increased frequency among statin-intolerant study subjects.

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