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Mutations in the DMD gene encoding dystrophin—a critical structural element in muscle cells—cause Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), which is the most common fatal genetic disease. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindrom...
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Mutations in the DMD gene encoding dystrophin—a critical structural element in muscle cells—cause Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), which is the most common fatal genetic disease. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-mediated gene editing is a promising strategy for permanently curing DMD. In this study, we developed a novel strategy for reframing DMD mutations via CRISPR-mediated large-scale excision of exons 46–54. We compared this approach with other DMD rescue strategies by using DMD patient-derived primary muscle-derived stem cells (DMD-MDSCs). Furthermore, a patient-derived xenograft (PDX) DMD mouse model was established by transplanting DMD-MDSCs into immunodeficient mice. CRISPR gene editing components were intramuscularly delivered into the mouse model by adeno-associated virus vectors. Results demonstrated that the large-scale excision of mutant DMD exons showed high efficiency in restoring dystrophin protein expression. We also confirmed that CRISPR from Prevotella and Francisella 1(Cas12a)-mediated genome editing could correct DMD mutation with the same efficiency as CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9). In addition, more than 10% human DMD muscle fibers expressed dystrophin in the PDX DMD mouse model after treated by the large-scale excision strategies. The restored dystrophin in vivo was functional as demonstrated by the expression of the dystrophin glycoprotein complex member β-dystroglycan. We demonstrated that the clinically relevant CRISPR/Cas9 could restore dystrophin in human muscle cells in vivo in the PDX DMD mouse model. This study demonstrated an approach for the application of gene therapy to other genetic diseases.
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Dystrophinopathy, a common neuromuscular disorder caused by the absence of dystrophin, currently lacks effective treatments. Systemic transplantation of adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) is a promising treatment approach, but its...
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Dystrophinopathy, a common neuromuscular disorder caused by the absence of dystrophin, currently lacks effective treatments. Systemic transplantation of adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) is a promising treatment approach, but its low efficacy remains a challenge. Chemokine system-mediated stem cell homing plays a critical role in systemic transplantation. Here, we investigated whether overexpression of a specific chemokine receptor could improve muscle homing and therapeutic effects of ADSC systemic transplantation in dystrophic mice. We analysed multiple microarray datasets from the Gene Expression Omnibus to identify a candidate chemokine receptor and then evaluated the protein expression of target ligands in different tissues and organs of dystrophic mice. The candidate chemokine receptor was overexpressed using the lentiviral system in mouse ADSCs, which were used for systemic transplantation into the dystrophic mice, followed by evaluation of motor function, stem cell muscle homing, dystrophin expression, and muscle pathology. Chemokine-profile analysis identified C–C chemokine receptor (CCR)2 as the potential target for improving ADSC homing. We found that the levels of its ligands C–C chemokine ligand (CCL)2 and CCL7 were higher in muscles than in other tissues and organs of dystrophic mice. Additionally, CCR2 overexpression improved ADSC migration ability and maintained their multilineage-differentiation potentials. Compared with control ADSCs, transplantation of those overexpressing CCR2 displayed better muscle homing and further improved motor function, dystrophin expression, and muscle pathology in dystrophic mice. These results demonstrated that CCR2 improved ADSC muscle homing and therapeutic effects following systemic transplantation in dystrophic mice.
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Dystrophinopathy, a common neuromuscular disorder, includes Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD). Many researches are currently ongoing to develop curative approaches, which results in an urgent ne...
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Dystrophinopathy, a common neuromuscular disorder, includes Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD). Many researches are currently ongoing to develop curative approaches, which results in an urgent need for biomarkers of disease progression and treatment response. This study investigated whether the serum creatinine (SCRN) level can be used as a biomarker of disease progression in dystrophinopathy. We enrolled 377 male patients with dystrophinopathy and 520 male non-dystrophinopathy controls in a cross-sectional study. From this cohort, 113 follow-up patients were enrolled in a longitudinal study. Patients’ demographic information, motor function, muscle fatty infiltration, and muscle dystrophin levels were evaluated. We investigated correlations between these parameters and SCRN levels, and determined changes in SCRN levels with maturation and with motor function changes. Our results showed SCRN levels correlated with motor function (FDR?<?0.001) and timed test results (FDR between <?0.001–0.012), as well as with muscle fatty infiltration (FDR?<?0.001) and dystrophin levels (FDR?=?0.015 and 0.001). SCRN levels increased with maturation in control individuals; it slowly increased with maturation in patients with BMD but decreased generally with maturation in patients with DMD. The longitudinal study further demonstrated that SCRN levels were associated with motor function. These findings indicated that the SCRN level is a promising biomarker for assessing disease progression in dystrophinopathy and could be used as a potential outcome measure in clinical trials.
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Objective. To investigate the ratios of creatine kinase (CK) to aminotransferases as biomarkers of acute liver injury in dystrophinopathy. Methods. C57 and mdx (dystrophic) mice were treated with a hepatotoxic reagent D-galactosam...
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Objective. To investigate the ratios of creatine kinase (CK) to aminotransferases as biomarkers of acute liver injury in dystrophinopathy. Methods. C57 and mdx (dystrophic) mice were treated with a hepatotoxic reagent D-galactosamine (D-GalN). The degrees of liver and muscle injury were assessed using histological examinations. To examine whether serum CK-adjusted aminotransferase levels could indicate liver status in dystrophic mice, the CK/alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and CK/aspartate aminotransferase (AST) ratios were analyzed. Furthermore, we enrolled 658 male patients with dystrophinopathy and 378 male patients without muscle and liver injury as control, whose serum ALT, AST, and CK levels were examined. Results. Animal experiments indicated that D-GalN treatment could induce acute liver injury but not muscle injury. Additionally, D-GalN decreased the CK/ALT and CK/AST ratios in both C57 mice and mdx mice (P < 0.001). However, there was an overlap of the CK/AST ratio between dystrophic mice with and without acute liver injury. In patients with dystrophinopathy, CK-adjusted ALT diminished the variability associated with age, genotype, clinical phenotype, and motor function (P > 0.05). Conclusions. CK/ALT is a potential biomarker for the differential evaluation of acute liver injury in dystrophic mice, which highlights the value to further evaluate the practice of CK/ALT in dystrophinopathy patients.
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This paper mainly studies the hardware implementation of a fully connected neural network based on the 1T1R (one-transistor-one-resistor) array and its application in handwritten digital image recognition. The 1T1R arrays are prep...
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This paper mainly studies the hardware implementation of a fully connected neural network based on the 1T1R (one-transistor-one-resistor) array and its application in handwritten digital image recognition. The 1T1R arrays are prepared by connecting the memristor and nMOSFET in series, and a single-layer and a double-layer fully connected neural network are established. The recognition accuracy of 8 × 8 handwritten digital images reaches 95.19%. By randomly replacing the devices with failed devices, it is found that the stuck-off devices have little effect on the accuracy of the network, but the stuck-on devices will cause a sharp reduction of accuracy. By using the measured conductivity adjustment range and precision data of the memristor, the relationship between the recognition accuracy of the network and the number of hidden neurons is simulated. The simulation results match the experimental results. Compared with the neural network based on the precision of 32-bit floating point, the difference is lower than 1%.
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Twins with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) have been widely studied. We report the first rare case of monozygotic triplets with DMD who shared consistent phenotypes, including delayed motor and language milestones, muscle wastin...
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Twins with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) have been widely studied. We report the first rare case of monozygotic triplets with DMD who shared consistent phenotypes, including delayed motor and language milestones, muscle wasting and weakness, joint contracture, and lumbar lordosis. Muscle magnetic resonance imaging and biopsy revealed the similar muscle injury characteristics and dystrophin absence. Short tandem repeat analysis confirmed monozygosity. A de novo mutation (exon 49-52 deletion) was found in the triplets but not in their mother. Treatment included prednisone, idebenone, and rehabilitation management. At the 2-year follow-up, motor function had deteriorated, and muscle fatty infiltration was more extensive and severe. Our case offers a unique opportunity for genetic and therapeutic research. Furthermore, it highlights the critical role of genetic factors in DMD phenotypes and provides a potential choice for treatment observations. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V.
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Both nonvolatile and volatile characteristics are realized in the same Pt/HfO2/Ti memristor by specific electrical operations. The resistance states of nonvolatile memory hardly change for over 10(5) s, whereas the low resistance ...
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Both nonvolatile and volatile characteristics are realized in the same Pt/HfO2/Ti memristor by specific electrical operations. The resistance states of nonvolatile memory hardly change for over 10(5) s, whereas the low resistance state of volatile memory is unstable, and degenerates gradually into the high resistance state in hundreds of seconds. The volatile device was forming-free and realized only in clockwise voltage sweeping. Compared to the nonvolatile device, the operating current of volatile device was lower and showed obviously rectification characteristics. Emulations of synaptic plasticity including short-term plasticity, long-term plasticity, and spike-time-dependent-plasticity were achieved. Finally, the resistive switching mechanism of the volatile device was analyzed and assumed to be the trapping and detrapping of electrons by traps near the interface of Pt/HfO2.
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