Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Cell treatment slows disease in Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients

A cell therapy developed by the executive director of the Smidt Heart Institute stabilizes weakened muscles—including the heart muscle—in Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients, a new study published in the international ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

'Crosstalk' between muscle and spleen in Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common muscle disease in children and is passed on by X-linked recessive inheritance. Characteristic is a progressive muscular atrophy. The disease often results in death before ...

Genetics

New gene correction therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Duchenne type muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common hereditary muscular disease among children, leaving them wheelchair-bound before the age of 12 and reducing life expectancy. Researchers at Technical University of ...

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Dystrophin

Dystrophin is a rod-shaped cytoplasmic protein, and a vital part of a protein complex that connects the cytoskeleton of a muscle fiber to the surrounding extracellular matrix through the cell membrane. This complex is variously known as the costamere or the dystrophin-associated protein complex. Many muscle proteins, such as α-dystrobrevin, syncoilin, synemin, sarcoglycan, dystroglycan, and sarcospan, colocalize with dystrophin at the costamere.

The Dystrophin gene is the longest human gene known on DNA level, covering 2.4 megabases (0.08% of the human genome) at locus Xp21. However, it does not encode the longest protein known in humans, which is titin. The primary transcript measures about 2,400 kilobases and takes 16 hours to transcribe; the mature mRNA measures 14.0 kilobases. The 79 exons code for a protein of over 3500 amino acid residues.

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