Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy: Are telomeres the end of the story
Document Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2013-08-14Keywords
facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophyFSHD
telomeres
complex genetics
D4Z4 contractions
DUX4
compound heterozygotes
multifactorial
Congenital, Hereditary, and Neonatal Diseases and Abnormalities
Genetics
Musculoskeletal Diseases
Nervous System Diseases
Neurology
Neuroscience and Neurobiology
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Show full item recordAbstract
Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is a progressive myopathy with a relatively late age of onset (usually in the late teens) compared with Duchenne and many other muscular dystrophies. The current FSHD disease model postulates that contraction of the D4Z4 array at chromosome 4q35 leads to a more open chromatin conformation in that region and allows transcription of the DUX4 gene. DUX4 mRNA is stable only when transcribed from certain haplotypes that contain a polyadenylation signal. DUX4 protein is hypothesized to cause FSHD by mediating cytotoxicity and impairing skeletal muscle differentiation. We recently showed in a cell culture model that DUX4 expression is regulated by telomere length, suggesting that telomere shortening during aging may be partially responsible for the delayed onset and progressive nature of FSHD. We here put our data in the context of other recent findings arguing that progressive telomere shortening may play a critical role in FSHD but is not the whole story and that the current disease model needs additional refinement.Source
Stadler G, King OD, Robin JD, Shay JW, Wright WE. Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy: Are telomeres the end of the story? Rare Dis. 2013 Aug 14;1:e26142. doi: 10.4161/rdis.26142. PMID: 25003004; PMCID: PMC3927483. Link to article on publisher's site
DOI
10.4161/rdis.26142Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/37777PubMed ID
25003004Related Resources
Rights
Copyright © 2013 Landes Bioscience. This is an open-access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. The article may be redistributed, reproduced, and reused for non-commercial purposes, provided the original source is properly cited.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.4161/rdis.26142
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © 2013 Landes Bioscience. This is an open-access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. The article may be redistributed, reproduced, and reused for non-commercial purposes, provided the original source is properly cited.