Muscling In

Around one in every 4,000 boys is born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy – a muscle wasting disease caused by an inherited genetic fault meaning they can't make a vital muscle protein called dystrophin. Right now there’s no cure, but one possible treatment involves boosting levels of a smaller muscle protein, utrophin, which can replace the missing dystrophin. To do this as effectively as possible, researchers are studying how utrophin levels are controlled in muscle cells. This is a slice through the calf muscle of a mouse with a faulty version of dystrophin, with different types of muscle fibres labelled red and green. These are the 'fast twitch' fibres, responsible for speed and strength, but they're abnormal in these animals. Although increasing utrophin isn't an effective treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the moment, understanding what's going on at a molecular level might lead to better utrophin-boosting therapies in the future.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

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Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Adapted from image by Glen Banks and colleagues
• University of Washington, USA
• Originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in PLOS Genetics, June 2014