Tragedy in a heartbeat: malfunctioning desmin causes skeletal and cardiac muscle disease.
Muscle fiber deterioration resulting in progressive skeletal muscle weakness, heart failure, and respiratory distress occurs in more than 20 inherited myopathies. As discussed in this Review, one of the newly identified myopathies is desminopathy, a disease caused by dysfunctional mutations in desmin, a type III intermediate filament protein, or alphaB-crystallin, a chaperone for desmin. The range of clinical manifestations in patients with desminopathy is wide and may overlap with those observed in individuals with other myopathies. Awareness of this disease needs to be heightened, diagnostic criteria reliably outlined, and molecular testing readily available; this would ensure prevention of sudden death from cardiac arrhythmias and other complications.
Goldfarb
Lev G
LG
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. goldfarbl@ninds.nih.gov
Dalakas
Marinos C
MC
D000818:Animals; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000628:therapy; D003893:Desmin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D009135:Muscular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000628:therapy; D009154:Mutation; D010641:Phenotype; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D038203:alpha-Crystallin B Chain / Q000235:genetics
C059215:CRYAB protein, human; D003893:Desmin; D038203:alpha-Crystallin B Chain