scholarly journals Polyglutamine-expanded androgen receptor disrupts muscle triad, calcium dynamics and the excitation-contraction coupling gene expression program

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Chivet ◽  
C Marchioretti ◽  
M Pirazzini ◽  
D Piol ◽  
C Scaramuzzino ◽  
...  

AbstractSpinal and bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA) is caused by polyglutamine (polyQ) expansions in the androgen receptor (AR) gene. Although clinical and experimental evidence highlight a primary role for skeletal muscle in the onset, progression, and outcome of disease, the pathophysiological and molecular processes underlying SBMA muscle atrophy are poorly understood. Here we show that polyQ-expanded AR alters intrinsic muscle force generation before denervation. Reduced muscle force was associated with a switch in fiber-type composition, disrupted muscle striation, altered calcium (Ca++) dynamics in response to muscle contraction, and aberrant expression of excitation-contraction coupling (ECC) machinery genes in transgenic, knock-in and inducible SBMA mice and patients. Importantly, treatment to suppress polyQ-expanded AR toxicity restored ECC gene expression back to normal. Suppression of AR activation by surgical castration elicited similar ECC gene expression changes in normal mice, suggesting that AR regulates the expression of these genes in physiological conditions. Bioinformatic analysis revealed the presence of androgen-responsive elements on several genes involved in muscle function and homeostasis, and experimental evidence showed AR-dependent regulation of expression and promoter occupancy of the most up-regulated gene from transcriptomic analysis in SBMA muscle, i.e. sarcolipin, a key ECC gene. These observations reveal an unpredicted role for AR in the regulation of expression of genes involved in muscle contraction and Ca++ dynamics, a level of muscle function regulation that is disrupted in SBMA muscle, yet restored by pharmacologic treatment.

Author(s):  
J.R. Sommer ◽  
E. Bossen ◽  
A. Fabiato

The junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum (JSR, syn. terminal cisterna) is implicated in Ca++storage and release for muscle contraction. Its discrete ultrastructure permits distinction from the rest of the SR (free SR) even when it occurs without plasmalemmal contact, e.g. as extended JSR (EJSR) in bird, and corbular SR (CSR) in mammalian cardiac cells. The close apposition of JSR to plasmalemma via junctional processes is central to proposed mechanisms of translating voltage-dependent charge transfers at the plasmalemma during the action potential into Ca++release from the JSR. These hypotheses are put into question by the existence of EJSR (and CSR) which in birds constitutes 70-80% of the total JSR. An alternate hypothesis proposes, at least for cardiac cells, that Ca++entering the cell during excitation causes additional Ca++to be freed intracellularly. The notion of a chemical transmitter acting by diffusion is attractive because it will allow for the anomalous topography of EJSR, especially since bird cardiac cells have only about half the diameter of their mammalian relatives and have no transverse tubules.


2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariane Biquand ◽  
Simone Spinozzi ◽  
Paola Tonino ◽  
Jérémie Cosette ◽  
Joshua Strom ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Titin is a giant sarcomeric protein that is involved in a large number of functions, with a primary role in skeletal and cardiac sarcomere organization and stiffness. The titin gene (TTN) is subject to various alternative splicing events, but in the region that is present at the M-line, the only exon that can be spliced out is Mex5, which encodes for the insertion sequence 7 (is7). Interestingly, in the heart, the majority of titin isoforms are Mex5+, suggesting a cardiac role for is7. Here, we performed comprehensive functional, histological, transcriptomic, microscopic and molecular analyses of a mouse model lacking the Ttn Mex5 exon (ΔMex5), and revealed that the absence of the is7 is causative for dilated cardiomyopathy. ΔMex5 mice showed altered cardiac function accompanied by increased fibrosis and ultrastructural alterations. Abnormal expression of excitation–contraction coupling proteins was also observed. The results reported here confirm the importance of the C-terminal region of titin in cardiac function and are the first to suggest a possible relationship between the is7 and excitation–contraction coupling. Finally, these findings give important insights for the identification of new targets in the treatment of titinopathies.


1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (S2) ◽  
pp. 247-248
Author(s):  
J.R. Sommer ◽  
T. High ◽  
P. Ingram ◽  
D. Kopf ◽  
R. Nassar ◽  
...  

Extended junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum (EJSR) is an invariant differentiation of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) in bird cardiac myocytes (CM) and central to excitation-contraction coupling (ECC). EJSR occurs as both continuous and discontinuous extensions of junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum (JSR), and surrounds and pervades the Z/I band as the “ EJSR Z-rete” whose geometry has mechanistic implications for the function of “couplings” in ECC, in general. “Peripheral coupling(s)” (PC) in birds, and the additional “interior coupling(s)” (IC) at transverse tubules (TT) in mammals, are formed by tight apposition to plasmalemma of JSR, a specialized calcium (Ca) store of the SR. Free SR (FSR; i.e. free of JSR/EJSR specializations) is the rest of the smooth, tubular SR network, which connects intercalated patches of EJSR forming the EJSR Z-retes and, elsewhere, displays both longitudinal and transverse geometries in surrounding the contractile material for the purpose of sequestering Ca after each muscle contraction. Except for EJSR having no plasmalemmal contact, morphologically, EJSR and JSR are homologues:1 both have similar sizes; are studded (approx. 32 nm center-to-center) with junctional processes (JP; ryanodine receptor (RyR)/-Ca-release channels);


2013 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cibely Cristine Fontes-Oliveira ◽  
Sílvia Busquets ◽  
Gemma Fuster ◽  
Elisabet Ametller ◽  
Maite Figueras ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 151-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinz Jungbluth ◽  
Susan Treves ◽  
Francesco Zorzato ◽  
Anna Sarkozy ◽  
Julien Ochala ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
H. Mohri

In 1959, Afzelius observed the presence of two rows of arms projecting from each outer doublet microtubule of the so-called 9 + 2 pattern of cilia and flagella, and suggested a possibility that the outer doublet microtubules slide with respect to each other with the aid of these arms during ciliary and flagellar movement. The identification of the arms as an ATPase, dynein, by Gibbons (1963)strengthened this hypothesis, since the ATPase-bearing heads of myosin molecules projecting from the thick filaments pull the thin filaments by cross-bridge formation during muscle contraction. The first experimental evidence for the sliding mechanism in cilia and flagella was obtained by examining the tip patterns of molluscan gill cilia by Satir (1965) who observed constant length of the microtubules during ciliary bending. Further evidence for the sliding-tubule mechanism was given by Summers and Gibbons (1971), using trypsin-treated axonemal fragments of sea urchin spermatozoa. Upon the addition of ATP, the outer doublets telescoped out from these fragments and the total length reached up to seven or more times that of the original fragment. Thus, the arms on a certain doublet microtubule can walk along the adjacent doublet when the doublet microtubules are disconnected by digestion of the interdoublet links which connect them with each other, or the radial spokes which connect them with the central pair-central sheath complex as illustrated in Fig. 1. On the basis of these pioneer works, the sliding-tubule mechanism has been established as one of the basic mechanisms for ciliary and flagellar movement.


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