Myotonic dystrophy (DM) is caused by the expansion of CTG and CCTG microsatellites in the non-coding regions of two different genes, DMPK and ZNF9/CNBP. Upon transcription, these repeat expansions fold into stable RNA hairpin structures that are toxic because they alter the activities of two families of alternative splicing factors, the muscleblind-like (MBNL) and CUGBP/ETR-3-like factor (CELF) proteins. Although this RNA-mediated pathogenesis model accounts for many aspects of adult-onset DM, the molecular events underlying congenital DM (CDM) are less clear since this form of the disease is only associated with very large CTG repeat expansions in the DMPK gene. While searching for factors involved in CDM pathogenesis, we discovered that Mbnl3 expression is restricted to embryonic muscle development and postnatal muscle regeneration. Based on these, and additional, results, this proposal is designed to test the hypothesis that Mbnl3 activity is essential for normal muscle development and regeneration and loss of this activity leads to delayed myogenesis in CDM followed by muscle weakness/wasting in adults. To test this hypothesis, Mbnl3 conditional knockout mice have been generated to test the effects of Mbnl3 loss on the development and regeneration of skeletal muscle. Additionally, RNA targets for Mbnl3 will be identified in both developing and regenerating muscle followed by assays designed to determine how loss of Mbnl3 leads to mis-regulation of these targets and specific pathological outcomes. Since we have discovered that Mbnl3 encodes both nuclear and cytoplasmic proteins, functional differences between these isoforms will be investigated and the hypothesis that MBNL proteins form different types of complexes on CUG versus CCUG expansion RNAs will be tested. Finally, we will generate Mbnl double and triple muscle-specific knockout mice to test our model that myotonic dystrophy is an MBNL loss-of-function disease. The goal of these studies is to understand the molecular events which lead to CDM and adult-onset DM and use this knowledge for the development of novel disease therapies.
While myotonic dystrophy (DM) is the most common form of muscular dystrophy in adults, this disorder also affects newborn children. Our research is directed at understanding the disease-associated molecular events which lead to congenital and adult-onset DM. The study proposed in this grant is specifically focused on understanding how this disease affects the development and regeneration of skeletal muscle and this knowledge should allow us to develop novel therapeutic approaches for this disease.
| Scotti, Marina M; Swanson, Maurice S (2016) RNA mis-splicing in disease. Nat Rev Genet 17:19-32 |
| Coram, Ryan J; Stillwagon, Samantha J; Guggilam, Anuradha et al. (2015) Muscleblind-like 1 is required for normal heart valve development in vivo. BMC Dev Biol 15:36 |
| Goodwin, Marianne; Mohan, Apoorva; Batra, Ranjan et al. (2015) MBNL Sequestration by Toxic RNAs and RNA Misprocessing in the Myotonic Dystrophy Brain. Cell Rep 12:1159-68 |
| Davis, Jennifer; Salomonis, Nathan; Ghearing, Natasha et al. (2015) MBNL1-mediated regulation of differentiation RNAs promotes myofibroblast transformation and the fibrotic response. Nat Commun 6:10084 |
| Rau, Frédérique; Lainé, Jeanne; Ramanoudjame, Laetitita et al. (2015) Abnormal splicing switch of DMD's penultimate exon compromises muscle fibre maintenance in myotonic dystrophy. Nat Commun 6:7205 |
| Batra, Ranjan; Manchanda, Mini; Swanson, Maurice S (2015) Global insights into alternative polyadenylation regulation. RNA Biol 12:597-602 |
| Batra, Ranjan; Charizanis, Konstantinos; Manchanda, Mini et al. (2014) Loss of MBNL leads to disruption of developmentally regulated alternative polyadenylation in RNA-mediated disease. Mol Cell 56:311-322 |
| Mohan, Apoorva; Goodwin, Marianne; Swanson, Maurice S (2014) RNA-protein interactions in unstable microsatellite diseases. Brain Res 1584:3-14 |
| Goodwin, Marianne; Swanson, Maurice S (2014) RNA-binding protein misregulation in microsatellite expansion disorders. Adv Exp Med Biol 825:353-88 |
| Poulos, Michael G; Batra, Ranjan; Li, Moyi et al. (2013) Progressive impairment of muscle regeneration in muscleblind-like 3 isoform knockout mice. Hum Mol Genet 22:3547-58 |
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