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Utrophin is lacking at the neuromuscular junctions in the extraocular muscles of normal cat: artefact or true?

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Abstract

Extraocular muscles (EOM) are typically spared in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. We hypothesized that this might be due to different patterns of utrophin expression. The expression of utrophin was examined in EOM of normal cats using immunohistochemical methods and Western blot. For detecting acetylcholine receptors (AChR), we used α-bungarotoxin. Surprisingly, α-bungarotoxin failed to stain the AChR and no expression of utrophin could be detected at the neuromuscular junctions. Our study could indicate that the expression of utrophin is dependent on the structure of the AChR.

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Abbreviations

AChE:

Acetylcholinesterase

AChR:

Acetylcholine receptors

DMD:

Duchenne muscular dystrophy

EOM:

Extraocular muscles

NMJ:

Neuromuscular junctions

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Jean-Marc Burgunder for the discussions that led to the idea for the study. We are grateful to Dr. Christian Fuhrer from the Brain Research Institute at the University of Züdieresisrich-Irchel for kindly providing antibodies against rapsyn. We also thank Theres Lauterburg, Astrid Rhyner, and Sulamith Gehr for their technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Anatomy, University of Zürich-Irchel, Zürich, Switzerland

    Maziar Assadi & Markus Müntener

  2. Department of Chemistry and applied Biosciences, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland

    Markus Müntener

  3. F. Hoffmann-La Roche, 93/8.08, 4070, Basel, Switzerland

    Maziar Assadi

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  1. Maziar Assadi
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  2. Markus Müntener
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Correspondence to Maziar Assadi.

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Assadi, M., Müntener, M. Utrophin is lacking at the neuromuscular junctions in the extraocular muscles of normal cat: artefact or true?. Histochem Cell Biol 123, 189–194 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00418-005-0762-9

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