Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C1762617 (weakness)
 37,932 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is characterized by clinical weakness and progressive necrosis of striated muscle as a consequence of dystrophin deficiency. While all skeletal muscle groups are thought to be affected, enigmatically, the extraocular muscles (EOM) appear clinically unaffected. Here we show that dystrophin deficiency does not result in myonecrosis or pathologically elevated levels of intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) in EOM. At variance with a previous report, we find no evidence for dystrophin-related protein/utrophin up-regulation in EOM. In vitro experiments demonstrate that extraocular muscles are inherently more resistant to necrosis caused by pharmacologically elevated [Ca2+]i levels when compared with pectoral musculature. We believe that EOM are spared in DMD because of their intrinsic ability to maintain calcium homeostasis better than other striated muscle groups. Our results indicate that modulating levels of [Ca2+]i in muscle may be of potential therapeutic use in DMD.
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PMID:Absence of extraocular muscle pathology in Duchenne's muscular dystrophy: role for calcium homeostasis in extraocular muscle sparing. 762 6

The expression of dystrophin and a dystrophin-related protein in muscle from 3 asymptomatic Becker muscular dystrophy patients is reported. Histology demonstrated moderate variation in fiber size with clustered basophilic regenerating fibers. Immunostaining for dystrophin revealed a patchy appearance on most fibers, but never on clustered regenerating fibers. Those regenerating fibers did, however, have positive immunoreactivity to a dystrophin-related protein. It is speculated that overexpression of the dystrophin-related protein in regenerating muscle fibers may contribute to the slow progression of muscle weakness or atrophy.
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PMID:Asymptomatic Becker muscular dystrophy: expression of dystrophin and dystrophin-related protein. 835 53

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive muscle wasting disease usually resulting in death of patients by their early twenties. In contrast, mice lacking dystrophin (Dmd(mdx)), appear physically normal despite their underlying muscle pathology. Mice deficient for both dystrophin and the dystrophin-related protein, utrophin, (Dmd(mdx);Utrn-/- mice) die between 6 and 20 weeks of age suffering from severe muscle weakness with joint contractures, pronounced growth retardation and kyphosis, suggesting that dystrophin and utrophin play complementary roles. The exact cause of death in these mice was not determined. Here we show that expression of a truncated utrophin transgene solely within the skeletal muscle of these mutants prevents premature death and the development of any clinical phenotype. In the absence of full-length dystrophin and utrophin, the presence of truncated utrophin also decreases muscle fibre regeneration, relocalizes the dystrophin protein complex to the sarcolemma and re-establishes a normal expression pattern of developmental muscle proteins. These data suggest that Dmd(mdx);Utrn-/- mice succumb to a skeletal muscle defect and that their reduced lifespan is not due to cardiac or neurogenic components. The phenotypic rescue observed demonstrates that the Dmd(mdx);Utrn-/- mice are an ideal model for testing gene delivery protocols for the expression of utrophin or dystrophin in skeletal muscle. To determine the cause of death of the Dmd(mdx):Utrn-/- mice.
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PMID:Skeletal muscle-specific expression of a utrophin transgene rescues utrophin-dystrophin deficient mice. 959 Feb 95