Technische Universität München
Gene scissors for Duchenne muscular dystrophy
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Gene scissors against incurable muscular disease
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 twelve and reducing life expectancy. Researchers at Technical University of Munich (TUM), Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the German Research Center for Environmental Health (Helmholtz Zentrum München) have developed a gene therapy that may provide permanent relief for those suffering from DMD.
Muscles need dystrophin in order to regenerate. Persons suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy lack this essential muscular protein due to mutations in the gene which is responsible for producing dystrophin. As a result, their existing muscle cells deteriorate over time and are gradually replaced by connective and fatty tissue; muscle strength weakens during the course of the disease. The first symptoms usually appear around the age of five. Children with the disease begin to have difficulties with movements they previously completed with ease, for example climbing stairs or getting up from the floor. At approximately the age of twelve, they are no longer able to walk, later losing movement in their arms and hands. Due to concomitant respiratory and cardiac failure, the majority of patients does not reach the age of 40. DMD affects mainly boys, since the responsible mutations are located in the dystrophin gene on the X chromosome.
Gene scissors remove defective gene sequence
An interdisciplinary Munich research team led by scientists from TUM has for the first time succeeded in correcting the mutated dystrophin gene in living pigs. In order to cut the defective gene sequence from the DNA of the animals' muscle and heart cells, the researchers modified the Crispr-Cas9 gene scissors. "These gene scissors are highly efficient and specifically corrected the dystrophin gene," says Prof. Wolfgang Wurst, developmental geneticist at TUM and the German Research Center for Environmental Health. It became then again possible to viably read the gene which had been unreadable because of the genetic defect, thus allowing for a successful protein biosynthesis. Now the shorter but stably formed dystrophin protein was able to improve muscle function. The animals treated were less susceptible to cardiac arrhythmia and had an increased life expectancy compared to animals with the disease that did not receive the therapy.
A permanent therapy
"Muscle and heart cells are long-lived cell structures. One half of all myocardial cells remain functional from birth throughout the entire lifecycle of a human being," says Prof. Christian Kupatt, cardiologist at university hospital TUM Klinikum rechts der Isar. "The genome of a cell is used for protein biosynthesis as long as the cell is alive, and once a cell has been affected by the therapy, it remains corrected. So if we change the genome of a myocardial cell, the correction is a long-term success, in contrast to the results of previous methods."
Therapeutic success with clinically relevant model
The gene sequence responsible for the dystrophin protein has already been successfully corrected in the past, however in mice and other animal models. "Our results are very promising, since for the first time, we have now been able to demonstrate therapeutic success in a clinically relevant large animal model," says Prof. Maggie Walter, neurologist at the LMU university hospital. In terms of important biochemical, clinical and pathological changes, the pig model mirrors Duchenne muscular dystrophy in humans. "Since the disease proceeds faster in our pig model, we were able to verify the efficacy of the therapeutic approaches within a manageable period of time," says Prof. Eckhard Wolf, LMU specialist in veterinary medicine.
Publication:
Moretti, A., et al., Wolf, E.; Wurst, W., Kupatt, C.: Somatic gene editing ameliorates skeletal and cardiac muscle failure in pig and human models of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In: Nature Medicine, 27 January 2020.
DOI: 10.1038/s41591-019-0738-2
Contact:
Prof. Dr. med. Christian Kupatt
Clinic and Policlinic for Internal Medicine I
TUM Klinikum rechts der Isar
Technical University of Munich
Phone: +49 89 4140 2947
christian.kupatt@tum.de
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wurst
Professorship for Developmental Genetics
School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan
Technical University of Munich
German Research Center for Environmental Health
Phone: +49 89 3187 4110
wurst@helmholtz-muenchen.de
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of Europe's leading research universities, with around 550 professors, 43,000 students, and 10,000 academic and non-academic staff. Its focus areas are the engineering sciences, natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, combined with economic and social sciences. TUM acts as an entrepreneurial university that promotes talents and creates value for society. In that it profits from having strong partners in science and industry. It is represented worldwide with the TUM Asia campus in Singapore as well as offices in Beijing, Brussels, Cairo, Mumbai, San Francisco, and São Paulo. Nobel Prize winners and inventors such as Rudolf Diesel, Carl von Linde, and Rudolf Mößbauer have done research at TUM. In 2006, 2012, and 2019 it won recognition as a German "Excellence University." In international rankings, TUM regularly places among the best universities in Germany.