Project description:Crossing of hDMD mice that contain the full-length 2.3 Mb hDMD gene were crossed with dystrophin-deficient mdx mice and dystrophin and utrophin double-deficient mdx x utrn-/- mice resulted in a full rescue of the dystrophic features of these mice, as concluded from histological analysis. Analysis on Affymetrix gene chips demonstrated that also expression profiles of the dystrophic mice were normalized by crossing with transgenic hDMD mice. This confirms the full functionality of the hDMD transgene in mice. Keywords: disease state analysis
Project description:Crossing of hDMD mice that contain the full-length 2.3 Mb hDMD gene were crossed with dystrophin-deficient mdx mice and dystrophin and utrophin double-deficient mdx x utrn-/- mice resulted in a full rescue of the dystrophic features of these mice, as concluded from histological analysis. Analysis on Affymetrix gene chips demonstrated that also expression profiles of the dystrophic mice were normalized by crossing with transgenic hDMD mice. This confirms the full functionality of the hDMD transgene in mice. Experiment Overall Design: RNA from gastrocnemius muscle from individual mice was hybridized to Affymetrix U74Av2
Project description:iRNA approaches were used to knock down the expression of dystrophin (DMD), including its full-length isoform DP427, and utrophin (UTRN) genes. Specifically, iRNA-mediated knockdown of both DMD (full-length dystrophin DP427) and UTRN was performed in HSkM myotubes. It is known that the shorter dystrophin isoform DP71 compensates for full-length dystrophin DP427 in the early stages of myofiber differentiation in cell models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Accordingly, DP427-deficient and DP71/DP427-deficient HSkM myotubes exhibit distinct changes in the expression of genes involved in membrane integrity and cytoskeletal functions. RNA-sequencing analyses revealed overlapping transcriptomic alterations in these HSkM cell lines, which corresponded to observed phenotypic abnormalities such as increased membrane permeability and intracellular calcium levels, mitochondrial aggregation, elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS), enhanced cyto- and genotoxicity, and induction of apoptosis.
Project description:DMD is a genetic disease, which leads to muscle weakness and cardiomyopathy. The latter remains incurable, being the main cause of death in DMD, therefore new therapeutic strategies are being sought to provide effective treatment. One of them considers upregulation of utrophin, a protein structurally and functionally homologous to dystrophin. In this study proteomic analysis of dystrophin-deficient and both dystrophin- and utrophin-deficient hiPSC-CM indicated on considerable differences in terms of contraction-related mechanisms. We thus investigated the role of utrophin in the maintenance of electrophysiological properties of DMD hiPSC-CM using the cells with additional utrophin deficiency and with utrophin upregulation. Obtained results indicated on disturbance of calcium handling in DMD hiPSC-CM, even more pronounced in DMD/UTRN KO hiPSC-CM and increased values of AHP in DMD hiPSC-CM. Utrophin upregulation improved both calcium oscillations and AHP values. Our findings highlight utrophin as important in the maintenance of the electrophysiological properties of DMD hiPSC-CM.
Project description:Comparison by expression profiling of tissue from dKO (utrophin/dystrophin-deficient) and MDX mice at 8 weeks of age. Independent triplicate analyses/strain were done for extraocular, hindlimb, and cardiac muscle.
Project description:Comparison by expression profiling of tissue from dKO (utrophin/dystrophin-deficient) and MDX mice at 8 weeks of age. Independent triplicate analyses/strain were done for extraocular, hindlimb, and cardiac muscle. Keywords = microarray Keywords = extraocular Keywords: parallel sample
Project description:The objective of this study was to test the novel non-steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (MRA) finerenone as a monotherapy in a preclinical Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) model. Microarray was used to detail gene expression differences in ventricular heart tissue from finerenone-treated dystrophin-deficient, utrophin-haploinsufficient Het (utrn+/−; mdx) mice versus untreated Het mice.
Project description:RNA sequencing of HSkM myotubes deficient in DMD, full-length dystrophin (DP427) and utrophin reveals common transcriptomic alterations
Project description:Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severely debilitating and incurable neuromuscular disease. Its conspicuous feature is the absence of dystrophin in myofibers and therefore most therapeutic approaches focus on some form of its re-expression there. However, increasing body of evidence points at an early developmental onset of DMD and severe abnormalities were uncovered in dystrophic muscle stem cells. In this study, we explore gene expression changes in primary myoblasts from mice lacking expression of the full length dystrophin transcript. Total RNA extracted from primary myoblasts isolated from gastrocnemii of 8 week old male Dmd-mdx (MDX - lacking the full length dystrophin transcript), Dmd-mdx-βgeo (BGEO - lacking all dystrophin expression) and control mice (WT) were subjected to RNA sequencing following ribodepletion, and analysed for the differential expression of genes between groups and the enrichment of gene ontology categories or pathways.
Project description:This study applies targeted Cas9-based gene insertion strategies for the correction of full-length dystrophin in a pre-clinical humanized mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Following intramuscular or intravenous delivery, full-length dystrophin is restored in skeletal and cardiac muscle.
