51. Duchenne muscular dystrophy animal models for high-throughput drug discovery and precision medicine
- Author
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Shi-Jie Chen, Dongsheng Duan, and Nalinda B. Wasala
- Subjects
Duchenne muscular dystrophy ,Computational biology ,Genome ,Article ,Dystrophin ,Mice ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Drug Development ,Genome editing ,Drug Discovery ,Animals ,Humans ,Medicine ,CRISPR ,Precision Medicine ,030304 developmental biology ,0303 health sciences ,biology ,Drug discovery ,business.industry ,Precision medicine ,medicine.disease ,Exon skipping ,High-Throughput Screening Assays ,Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne ,Disease Models, Animal ,030220 oncology & carcinogenesis ,Mutation ,biology.protein ,business - Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked handicapping disease due to the loss of an essential muscle protein dystrophin. Dystrophin-null animals have been extensively used to study disease mechanisms and to develop experimental therapeutics. Despite decades of research, however, treatment options for DMD remain very limited. AREAS COVERED: High-throughput high-content screening and precision medicine offer exciting new opportunities. Here, the authors review animal models that are suitable for these studies. EXPERT OPINION: Nonmammalian models (worm, fruit fly, and zebrafish) are particularly attractive for cost-effective large-scale drug screening. Several promising lead compounds have been discovered using these models. Precision medicine for DMD aims at developing mutation-specific therapies such as exon-skipping and genome editing. To meet these needs, models with patient-like mutations have been established in different species. Models that harbor hotspot mutations are very attractive because the drugs developed in these models can bring mutation-specific therapies to a large population of patients. Humanized hDMD mice carry the entire human dystrophin gene in the mouse genome. Reagents developed in the hDMD mouse-based models are directly translatable to human patients.
- Published
- 2020