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

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the previously reported differences in adenylate cyclase activity between the sarcolemma of normal and dystrophic chick muscles are also found in the SR, to search for a possible relationship between the adenylate cyclase changes and the pathophysiology of dystrophy, and to investigate whether the findings can be extended to Duchenne human muscular dystrophy by studying the adenylate cyclase and ATPase activities of erythrocyte ghosts from DMD patients and carriers. Microsomes were separated by standard techniques from the pectoralis muscles of normal and dystrophic ckeckens of various ages. The microsomal yields were significantly larger in dystrophic muscles. Adenylate cyclase activities in dystrophic microsomes were higher than those in matched controls and increased with the progression of the disease. The ratio between the two rose from one at 2 weeks of age to nine at about 9--10 weeks. Kinetic analyses showed that the ks for MgATP2- was about 40 microM (at 3 mM Mg2+ and 0.3 mM Ca2+) both in normal and dystrophic microsomes, that calcium caused umcompetitive inhibition of the enzyme (Ki = 0.2 mM), that the effect of calcium was noncooperative (Hill coefficient, nH = 1), that calcium did not affect the cooperativity for MgATP2-, and that magnesium competitively removed the calcium inhibition and caused additional, cooperative stimulation of the enzymatic activity (ka = 1.5 mM; NH =2). The major difference between normal and dystrophic adenylate cyclase was a higher enzymatic velocity in the latter, suggesting a larger amount of enzyme. We investigated whether altered cAMP levels may effect calcium accumulation. Calcium uptake measured (in the presence of oxalate) at several ages revealed no difference between normal and dystrophic chickens. The extent of calcium binding was also similar, although the kd for Ca2+ was lower in dystrophic microsomes. Binding was enhanced in the presence of exogenous protein kinase, but the responses of normal and dystrophic tissues were similar. We concluded that the elevation of adenylate cyclase in dystrophy was not related to microsomal calcium accumultion. Ivestigation of the localization of microsomal adenylate cyclase supported this view. Separation of calcium-loaded microsomes on a discontinuous sucrose gradient into four fractions demonstrated that adenylate cyclase activity, measured in the presence of Lubrol-PX and EGTA, was inversely related to calcium-accumulating activity. Na+, K+-ATPase comigrated with adenylate cyclase. Highest specific activities were found in the lightest fraction. These observations were confirmed by histochemical studies. The reaction product from adenylate cyclase activity was present predominantly in the terminal cisternae of the SR. In the context of the literature, our findings suggest that the rises in adenylate cyclase and Na+, K+-ATPase in avian dystrophy are compensatory changes, elicited by a defect in ECC at the calcium release step...
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PMID:Adenylate cyclase in muscular dystrophy. 15 10

Protein phosphorylation has been studied in the dydy murine muscular dystrophy, both in intact muscle cells and in various membrane fractions derived from them. The results obtained showed that several polypeptides were more heavily phosphorylated in dystrophic myotubes in culture as well as in dystrophic muscle fibers isolated from tibialis anterior. In vitro phosphorylation studies revealed that a large polypeptide of apparent molecular weight of 170,000-150,000 was phosphorylated under basal conditions (3 mM EGTA) in dydy microsomal membranes. The phosphorylation of this polypeptide was not stimulated further by cAMP, calmodulin, cGMP or 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA). Under no condition was the corresponding polypeptide phosphorylated at an appreciable rate in normal microsomal membranes. An antibody raised against the voltage-dependent calcium channel reacted, in an immunoblot assay, with a polypeptide, present in both normal and dydy microsomes, which had migration characteristics identical to the phosphorylated 170-150 kDa polypeptide after one- or two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. Additional differences were identified in the phosphorylation of smaller polypeptides of microsomal membranes. When sarcolemmal membranes of normal and dydy muscle were phosphorylated in vitro, no major differences were observed. These results show the existence of an alteration of protein phosphorylation in dystrophic muscle cells in vitro and in vivo, leading to abnormal phosphorylation of the voltage-dependent calcium channel. The possible causes and consequences of this alteration are discussed.
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PMID:Altered protein phosphorylation in murine muscular dystrophy. 237 59

Loxistatin is a possible therapeutic agent of muscular dystrophy. A single oral administration of loxistatin to male rats caused focal necrosis of the liver with inflammatory cell infiltration. The severity of the lesions was dose-dependent up to 200 mg/kg and also manifest by an increase in serum alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase activities. Hepatic glutathione (GSH) levels decreased with a maximum 20% depletion within 5 hr after the oral administration of loxistatin. Pretreatment with diethyl maleate did not potentiate the loxistatin-induced hepatic injury. On the other hand, the hepatoprotective effect of cysteamine was observed when cysteamine was administered 24 hr before loxistatin dosing, but the effect was not observed when the antidote was administered concomitantly with loxistatin. Pretreatment of rats with phenobarbital or trans-stilbene oxide provided partial protection against the hepatotoxic effect of loxistatin. Pretreatment with SKF-525A resulted in increased hepatic injury, while pretreatment with piperonyl butoxide, cimetidine, or 3-methylcholanthrene had no effect on hepatic damage by loxistatin. Five hours after [14C]loxistatin administration to rats, the covalent binding of the radioactivity to proteins was greatest in the liver, followed by the kidney, then muscle and blood to a lesser extent. [14C]Loxistatin acid, the pharmacologically active form of loxistatin, irreversibly bound to rat liver microsomal proteins; more binding occurred when the NADPH-generating system was omitted and when the microsomes were boiled first. GSH did not alter the extent of irreversible binding, whereas N-ethylmaleimide decreased the binding of [14C]loxistatin acid to rat liver microsomal proteins by 75%. Unlike the rat, administration of loxistatin to hamsters caused neither hepatic injury nor hepatic GSH depletion even at a high dose (500 mg/kg). Both the distribution and covalent binding of radioactivity in the hamster liver were one-third of those in rats following [14C]loxistatin dosing. These results suggest that loxistatin causes species-specific hepatotoxicity and that, at least in part, some of the toxic effects of loxistatin are mediated by the nonenzymatic covalent binding of loxistatin acid to thiol residues on cellular macromolecules.
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PMID:An epoxysuccinic acid derivative(loxistatin)-induced hepatic injury in rats and hamsters. 239 99

Glutathione- or sulfhydryl-dependent antioxidant factors that act to prevent lipid peroxidation have been reported in both microsomes and cytoplasm from rat liver. The cytoplasmic factor has been identified in several other tissues and species, but the distribution of the microsomal factor has not been reported. Chicken and mouse livers had much lower activities of the glutathione-dependent membrane-associated and cytoplasmic antioxidant factors than rat liver. Peroxidative damage to membranes has been hypothesized as a mechanism of tissue damage in muscular dystrophy. However, neither the chicken, mouse, nor rat had significant activities of the antioxidant factors in muscle. There was also no significant difference between normal and dystrophic chicken livers in the activity of the antioxidant factors associated with the microsomes or the cytoplasm, nor of the liver microsomal factor in normal and dystrophic mice. The results do not support an important role for the antioxidant factors in the pathogenesis of muscular dystrophy, and raise questions as to whether such factors are physiologically important in species other than rat or in tissues other than liver.
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PMID:Lipid peroxidation inhibitory factors in liver and muscle of rat, mouse, and chicken. 291 49

Ca2+-uptake activities of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) were determined with a Ca2+-sensitive electrode in homogenates from fast- and slow-twitch muscles from both normal and dystrophic mice (C57BL/6J strain) of different ages. Immunochemical quantification of tissue Ca2+-ATPase content allowed determination of the specific Ca2+-transport activity of the enzyme. In 3-week-old mice of the dystrophic strain specific Ca2+ transport was already significantly lower than in the normal strain. It progressively decreased with maturation and reached only 40-50% and 30-50% of the normal values in fast- and slow-twitch muscles of adult dystrophic animals, respectively. Tissue contents of calsequestrin were reduced in both types of muscle leading to an increased Ca2+-ATPase to calsequestrin protein ratio. Equal amounts of the Ca2+-ATPase protein (detected by Coomassie blue staining of polyacrylamide gels) were present in SR vesicles isolated by Ca2+-oxalate loading from adult normal and dystrophic fast-twitch muscles. However, the specific ATP-hydrolysing activity of the enzyme was approximately 50% lower in dystrophic than in normal SR. The reduced ATP-hydrolysing activity was correlated with decreased Ca2+-transport activity, phosphoprotein formation and fluorescein isothiocyanate labeling as determined in total microsomal and heavy SR fractions. Although the Ca2+ and ATP affinities of the enzyme were unaltered, its ATPase activity was reduced at all levels of ATP in the dystrophic SR. Taken together, these findings point to a markedly impaired function of the SR and an increase in the population of inactive SR Ca2+-ATPase molecules in murine muscular dystrophy.
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PMID:Postnatal development of Ca2+-sequestration by the sarcoplasmic reticulum of fast and slow muscles in normal and dystrophic mice. 296 44

Calcium uptake on muscle microsomal fraction has been investigated in connection with bioelectrical activity in some muscle diseases. The findings showed a significant increase of calcium uptake in denervated muscle, which exhibited spontaneous bioelectrical activity (fibrillations). In myotonias, a low calcium uptake was peculiar to Steinert's disease but not to myotonia congenita. In other muscle diseases, such as progressive muscular dystrophy (Duchenne's type) or Charcot-Marie-Tooth's disease, the ability of muscle microsomal fraction to bind calcium was not changed. Starting with the key role of calcium in excitation-contraction coupling, the implications of calcium uptake disturbances in muscle electrogenesis are discussed.
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PMID:Calcium uptake and bioelectrical activity of denervated and myotonic muscle. 543 20

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is known to be caused by a defective gene of dystrophin, a 427-kDa cytoskeletal protein, but the effective therapeutic drug is presently unavailable. We previously reported that a trypsin-like protease designated as dystrypsin is markedly activated in the muscle microsomal fraction immediately before onset of the clinical signs in mdx mice, a dystrophin-deficient hereditary animal model for human Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In order to examine the possible participation of dystrypsin in the occurrence of the disease, we investigated the therapeutic effects of dystrypsin inhibitors on the occurrence and progress of muscular dystrophy. Here, we show that camostat mesilate, a low-molecular-weight inhibitor of trypsin-like proteases, including dystrypsin, is a candidate drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
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PMID:Therapeutic effect of camostat mesilate on Duchenne muscular dystrophy in mdx mice. 1284 32

Duchenne muscular dystrophy represents one of the most common hereditary diseases. Abnormal ion handling is believed to render dystrophin-deficient muscle fibres more susceptible to necrosis. Although a reduced Ca(2+) buffering capacity has been shown to exist in the dystrophic sarcoplasmic reticulum, surprisingly no changes in the abundance of the main luminal Ca(2+) reservoir protein calsequestrin have been observed in microsomal preparations. To address this unexpected finding and eliminate potential technical artefacts of subcellular fractionation protocols, we employed a comparative subproteomics approach with total mouse skeletal muscle extracts. Immunoblotting, mass spectrometry and labelling of the entire muscle protein complement with the cationic carbocyanine dye 'Stains-All' was performed in order to evaluate the fate of major Ca(2+)-binding proteins in dystrophin-deficient skeletal muscle fibres. In contrast to a relatively comparable expression pattern of the main protein population in normal vs. dystrophic fibres, our analysis showed that the expression of key Ca(2+)-binding proteins of the luminal sarcoplasmic reticulum is drastically reduced. This included the main terminal cisternae constituent, calsequestrin, and the previously implicated Ca(2+)-shuttle element, sarcalumenin. In contrast, the 'Stains-All'-positive protein spot, representing the cytosolic Ca(2+)-binding component, calmodulin, was not changed in dystrophin-deficient fibres. The reduced 2D 'Stains-All' pattern of luminal Ca(2+)-binding proteins in mdx preparations supports the calcium hypothesis of muscular dystrophy. The previously described impaired Ca(2+) buffering capacity of the dystrophic sarcoplasmic reticulum is probably caused by a reduction in luminal Ca(2+)-binding proteins, including calsequestrin.
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PMID:Subproteomics analysis of Ca+-binding proteins demonstrates decreased calsequestrin expression in dystrophic mouse skeletal muscle. 1537 40