Antioxidant Treatment and Induction of Autophagy Cooperate to Reduce Desmin Aggregation in a Cellular Model of Desminopathy

PLoS One. 2015 Sep 2;10(9):e0137009. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137009. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Desminopathies, a subgroup of myofibrillar myopathies (MFMs), the progressive muscular diseases characterized by the accumulation of granulofilamentous desmin-positive aggregates, result from mutations in the desmin gene (DES), encoding a muscle-specific intermediate filament. Desminopathies often lead to severe disability and premature death from cardiac and/or respiratory failure; no specific treatment is currently available. To identify drug-targetable pathophysiological pathways, we performed pharmacological studies in C2C12 myoblastic cells expressing mutant DES. We found that inhibition of the Rac1 pathway (a G protein signaling pathway involved in diverse cellular processes), antioxidant treatment, and stimulation of macroautophagy reduced protein aggregation by up to 75% in this model. Further, a combination of two or three of these treatments was more effective than any of them alone. These results pave the way towards the development of the first treatments for desminopathies and are potentially applicable to other muscle or brain diseases associated with abnormal protein aggregation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Antioxidants / pharmacology*
  • Autophagy*
  • Cardiomyopathies / metabolism*
  • Cardiomyopathies / pathology
  • Cell Line
  • Desmin / genetics
  • Desmin / metabolism*
  • Kinetics
  • Mice
  • Models, Biological
  • Muscular Dystrophies / metabolism*
  • Muscular Dystrophies / pathology
  • Signal Transduction
  • Tocopherols / pharmacology

Substances

  • Antioxidants
  • Desmin
  • Tocopherols

Supplementary concepts

  • Myopathy, Myofibrillar, Desmin-Related

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Université Paris Diderot http://www.univ-paris-diderot.fr PV, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique” (CNRS) http://www.cnrs.fr UMR8251 PV, and Association Française contre les Myopathies (AFM) 15454 PV. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.