Droga aumenta a regeneração de músculos de camundongos com distrofia muscular

Itália - nesta pesquisa os autores estudaram um novo método de avaliação da membrana muscular de camundongos com distrofia muscular. Com este objetivo eles trataram os animais com molsidomine, um droga doadora de óxido nítrico, utilizada em doenças cardíacas (a droga não é utilizada no Brasil). Eles observaram uma melhora da membrana muscular que foi confirmada com menor grau de degeneração muscular e sinais de regeneração. O molsidomine já tinha sido testado em camundongos com distrofia muscular há alguns anos atrás, também com bons resultados.

O resumo em inglês pode ser lido abaixo:

(Neurobiology of Disease, 2009; 36 (2): 252-258) MALDI reveals membrane lipid profile reversion in MDX mice

Farida Benabdellah, Hua Yu, Alain Brunelle, Olivier Laprévote, Sabine De La Porte - France

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), the most common and severe X-linked myopathy, is characterized by the lack of dystrophin, a sub-sarcolemmal protein necessary for normal muscle functions. In a previous study of the lipid content of skeletal muscles of dystrophic (mdx) mice, the animal model for DMD, by in situ Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption-Ionization Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-MS), an inversion of the phosphatidylcholine PC34:2/PC34:1 ion peaks intensity ratio was observed between destructured (abnormal fiber morphology) and structured (normal fiber morphology). A possible treatment for this dramatic disease is to introduce an exogenous nitric oxide (NO) donor into the organism, leading to an increase of utrophin and a regression of the dystrophic phenotype. In the present work, after confirmation by tandem mass spectrometry of the structure of these two phospholipids, their intensity ratio inversion was used to evidence a restoration of membrane lipid composition very similar to those of wild-type mice after the treatment of mdx mice with MOLSIDOMINE, a NO donor. This was associated with the observation by immunohistology of an increase of the regeneration process in the mice.

Fonte: http://distrofiamuscular.net/noticias.htm