Thursday, December 15, 2016

Treatment of Drosophila model of DM1 with pentamidine reverses cellular and organismal phenotypes

Chakraborty M, Selma-Soriano E, Magny E, Couso JP, Pérez-Alonso M, Charlet-Berguerand N, Artero R, Llamusi B. Pentamidine rescues contractility and rhythmicity in a Drosophila model of myotonic dystrophy heart dysfunction. Dis Model Mech. 2015 Dec;8(12):1569-78. PMID: 26515653; PMCID: PMC4728315.

From the abstract: "Up to 80% of individuals with myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) will develop cardiac abnormalities at some point during the progression of their disease, the most common of which is heart blockage ... Such blockage is characterized by conduction defects and supraventricular and ventricular tachycardia, and carries a high risk of sudden cardiac death. ... Here, we describe the characterization of the heart phenotype in a Drosophila model expressing pure expanded CUG repeats under the control of the cardiomyocyte-specific driver GMH5-Gal4. ... As a proof of concept that the fly heart model can be used for in vivo testing of promising therapeutic compounds, we fed flies with pentamidine, a compound previously described to improve DM1 phenotypes. Pentamidine not only released Muscleblind from the CUG RNA repeats and reduced ribonuclear formation in the Drosophila heart, but also rescued heart arrhythmicity and contractility, and improved fly survival in animals expressing 250 CUG repeats."

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