Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0026850 (muscular dystrophy)
 5,870 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Thick round fibres common in cross sections of muscle biopsies from patients with muscular dystrophy are due to contracted and swollen segments of otherwise normal muscle fibres. This contracture leads to segmental fibre breakdown, which is identical with Zenker's waxy degeneration. In biopsies from 90 patients suspected of neuromuscular disease, segmental contracture was seen in all or nearly all patients with infantile muscular dystrophy, necrotic myopathy or acute alcoholic myopathy. It was present in half of the patients with polymyositis or myotonic dystrophy. In resticted forms of muscular dystrophy it was rare as it was in neurogenic atrophy. In 9 clinically normal patients it was absent. In electron micrographs of the initial stage sarcomeres were moderately shortened, the sarcoplasmic reticulum was distended and the mitochondria were normal. In the plasmalemma holes were found, through which glycogen granules were lost into the interstitial tissue. In later stages myofibrils were overcontracted and homogenized; in large areas the plasmalemma was absent. Based on these findings a hypothesis for the development of waxy degeneration is proposed: locally defects of the plasmamembrane cause segmental contracture, glycogen granules and water soluble enzymes are lost through holes in the plasma membrane, and finally the affected fibre segment becomes necrotic.
 ...
PMID:Segmental fibre breakdown and defects of the plasmalemma in diseased human muscles. 120 96

Previous studies showed that nitricoxide synthase (NOS) and oxidative stress can induce skeletal muscle atrophy in the muscular dystrophy and inclusion-body myopathy. There is a correlation between NOS and oxidative stress. However, it is not clear, whether there are some changes of the NOS activity in prolonged alcoholic myopathy (PAM), and whether NOS activity has relation to amyotrophy of PAM. We established experimental alcoholic myopathy model of rats by prolonged alcohol intake. We found that there is a reduction in GSH-px (P < 0.05) and an increase of SOD (P < 0.05), MDA (P < 0.05) and iNOS (P < 0.05) in the plantaris of the experimental group by spectrophotometer. In the soleus of the experimental group, except for MDA showed an increase (P < 0.05), the other enzymes showed no obvious difference (P > 0.05). The immunohistochemistry results showed that there was obvious expression of iNOS in the cytoplasm of plantaris in the experimental group and there was no expression of iNOS in the control group. There was a decrease of nNOS expression on the membranes of the plantaris cells in the experimental group by immunofluorescence. Meanwhile, we found the expression of nNOS in some cytoplasm. Our results suggested that NOS might be an important factor during the development of PAM. We could infer that there are some disturbances with regard to output and scavenging of free radical in PAM. Alcohol can induce the oxidative stress reaction and further result in imbalance of the oxidant-antioxidant status in the organism.
 ...
PMID:Nitricoxide synthase-induced oxidative stress in prolonged alcoholic myopathies of rats. 1760 8