Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2-2017

Journal

Cell Death and Differentiation

Volume

24

Issue

2

Inclusive Pages

330-342

DOI

10.1038/cdd.2016.127

Abstract

Dystrophin deficiency is the genetic basis for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), but the cellular basis of progressive myofiber death in DMD is not fully understood. Using two dystrophin-deficient mdx mouse models, we find that the mitochondrial dysfunction is among the earliest cellular deficits of mdx muscles. Mitochondria in dystrophic myofibers also respond poorly to sarcolemmal injury. These mitochondrial deficits reduce the ability of dystrophic muscle cell membranes to repair and are associated with a compensatory increase in dysferlin-mediated membrane repair proteins. Dysferlin deficit in mdx mice further compromises myofiber cell membrane repair and enhances the muscle pathology at an asymptomatic age for dysferlin-deficient mice. Restoring partial dystrophin expression by exon skipping improves mitochondrial function and offers potential to improve myofiber repair. These findings identify that mitochondrial deficit in muscular dystrophy compromises the repair of injured myofibers and show that this repair mechanism is distinct from and complimentary to the dysferlin-mediated repair of injured myofibers.

Comments

Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature. Cell Death and Differentiation

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Peer Reviewed

1

Open Access

1

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