Monday, February 15, 2016

Tests in fly help shed light on mechanisms relevant to muscular dystrophy

Dialynas G, Shrestha OK, Ponce JM, Zwerger M, Thiemann DA, Young GH, Moore SA, Yu L, Lammerding J, Wallrath LL. Myopathic lamin mutations cause reductive stress and activate the nrf2/keap-1 pathway. PLoS Genet. 2015 May 21;11(5):e1005231. PMID: 25996830; PMCID: PMC4440730.

From the abstract: "Mutations in the human LMNA gene cause muscular dystrophy by mechanisms that are incompletely understood. The LMNA gene encodes A-type lamins, intermediate filaments that form a network underlying the inner nuclear membrane, providing structural support for the nucleus and organizing the genome. To better understand the pathogenesis caused by mutant lamins, we performed a structural and functional analysis on LMNA missense mutations identified in muscular dystrophy patients. These mutations perturb the tertiary structure of the conserved A-type lamin Ig-fold domain. To identify the effects of these structural perturbations on lamin function, we modeled these mutations in Drosophila Lamin C and expressed the mutant lamins in muscle. ... Affected muscles had cytoplasmic aggregation of lamins and additional nuclear envelope proteins. Transcription profiling revealed upregulation of many Nrf2 target genes. ... Elevated p62/SQSTM1 and nuclear enrichment of Nrf2 were identified in muscle biopsies from the corresponding muscular dystrophy patients, validating the disease relevance of our Drosophila model. Thus, novel connections were made between mutant lamins and the Nrf2 signaling pathway, suggesting new avenues of therapeutic intervention that include regulation of protein folding and metabolism, as well as maintenance of redox homoeostasis."

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