For the first time in the world, research teams such as Kobe University have found that the detailed cause of the onset of muscular dystrophy, a hereditary intractable disease that weakens muscle strength, is a disorder in the synthesis of a sugar called ribitol phosphate.Great news for establishing a cure for muscular dystrophy, the paper was published in the US electronic scientific journal Cell Reports.
According to Kobe University, there are various types of muscular dystrophy, and the Fukuyama-type congenital muscular dystrophy, which is common among Japanese people, is a severe type that is almost impossible to walk, and no cure has been found.So far, the research team has found that abnormalities occur in sugar compounds and sugar chains that are thought to have the function of maintaining cells on the surface of patient muscle cells, but the mechanism of onset was unknown. ..
Therefore, this time, we analyzed the structure of sugar chains and the function of genes in detail using human cells for experiments.As a result, it was found that the sugar chain contains ribitol phosphate, which has not been confirmed in mammals, and in the Fukuyama type, due to a genetic abnormality, the substance or sugar chain that is the basis of this sugar cannot be produced.
When the substance that is the basis of this sugar was given to cells that reproduced the disease by genetic engineering, the abnormality of the sugar chain was recovered, and the research team thinks that it may lead to the development of a treatment method that suppresses the progress. ..
Professor Tatsushi Toda of Kobe University has announced a comment that "the mechanism by which muscular dystrophy of unknown cause develops has been clarified, which will accelerate the development of treatment methods."
