Mice deficient in α-sarcoglycan (Sgca-null mice) develop progressive muscular dystrophy and serve as a model for human limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 2D. Sgca-null mice suffer a more severe myopathy than that of mdx mice, the model for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. This is the opposite of what is observed in humans and the reason for this is unknown. In an attempt to understand the cellular...

Limb girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) describes a group of inherited diseases resulting from mutations in genes encoding proteins involved in maintaining skeletal muscle membrane stability. LGMD type-2D is caused by mutations in alpha-sarcoglycan (sgca). Here we describe muscle-specific gene delivery of the human sgca gene into dystrophic muscle using an adeno-associated virus 1 (AAV1) capsid a...

IMPORTANCE Several recent US studies have documented racial disparities in head and neck cancer outcomes, but few have investigated racial and ethnic differences in salivary gland cancer (SGCA) survival. OBJECTIVE To determine whether patient race or ethnicity affects SGCA survival. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Retrospective survival analysis of all patients with SGCA from 1988 through...

Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy 2D (LGMD2D) is an inherited myogenic disorder belonging to the group of muscular dystrophies. Sgca-null mouse is a knock-out model of LGMD2D. Little is known about cardiac phenotype characterization in this model at different ages. We conducted a prospective study to characterize cardiac sgca-null mice phenotype using high resolution Doppler echocardiography at di...

alpha-Sarcoglycan-deficient (Sgca-null) mice provide potential for elucidating the pathogenesis of limb girdle muscular dystrophy type 2D (LGMD 2D) as well as for studying the effectiveness of therapeutic strategies. Skeletal muscles of Sgca-null mice demonstrate an early onset of extensive fiber necrosis, degeneration, and regeneration, but the progression of the pathology and the effects on m...

Limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 2D (LGMD 2D) is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the alpha-sarcoglycan gene. To determine how alpha-sarcoglycan deficiency leads to muscle fiber degeneration, we generated and analyzed alpha-sarcoglycan- deficient mice. Sgca-null mice developed progressive muscular dystrophy and, in contrast to other animal models for muscular dystrophy,...

It is commonly accepted that skeletal muscles from dystrophin-deficient mdx mice are more susceptible than those from wild-type mice to damage from eccentric contractions. However, the downstream mechanisms involved in this enhanced force drop remain controversial. We studied the reduction of contractile force induced by eccentric contractions elicited in vivo in the gastrocnemius muscle of wil...

Cardiomyopathy is a puzzling complication in addition to skeletal muscle pathology for patients with mutations in β-, γ- or δ-sarcoglycan (SG) genes. Patients with mutations in α-SG rarely have associated cardiomyopathy, or their cardiac pathology is very mild. We hypothesize that a fifth SG, ε-SG, may compensate for α-SG deficiency in the heart. To investigate the function of ε-SG in striated ...

semi-supervised multi-view data Xiaohong Chen, Songcan Chen, Hui Xue , Xudong Zhou 1 Department of Mathematics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China 2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China 3 State Key Laboratory for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093...

In the past few years, skeletal muscle has emerged as an important secretory organ producing soluble factors, called myokines, that exert either autocrine, paracrine or endocrine effects. Moreover, recent studies have shown that muscle releases microRNAs into the bloodstream in response to physical exercise. These microRNAs affect target cells, such as hormones and cytokines. The mechanisms und...