IMR Press / FBL / Volume 9 / Issue 1 / DOI: 10.2741/1209

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.

Review
For want of a nail. ramifications of a single gene deletion, dystrophin, in the brain of the mouse
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1 Discipline of Biochemistry, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences, The University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia
2 Dept of Anatomy and Histology, The University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2004, 9(1), 74–84; https://doi.org/10.2741/1209
Published: 1 January 2004
Abstract

Lack of expression of a single gene, dystrophin, causes the severe, progressive muscle wasting and mental deficits characteristic of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In this work, we investigated the impact of dystrophin deletion on expression of other genes in the brain cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum using the murine homologue, the mdx mouse, and RT-PCR.

Expression of the brain glucose transporters GLUT1 and GLUT2 was found to be decreased, as were some subunits of the GABAA and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Genes involved in bioenergetic homeostasis, such as the mitochondrial creatine kinase and the gamma subunit of ATP synthase were also found to be abnormally expressed, while expression of the structural proteins beta-dystrobrevin and rapsyn was also significantly affected.

We relate these findings to known functional deficits and discuss the possible mechanisms behind the altered gene expression.

Keywords
Gene Expression
Dystrophin
Glucose Metabolism
GABAA Receptor
Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor
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