<i>LAMA2</i> Nonsense Variant in an Italian Greyhound with Congenital Muscular Dystrophy

A 4-month-old, male Italian Greyhound with clinical signs of a neuromuscular disease was investigated. The affected dog presented with an abnormal short-strided gait, generalized muscle atrophy, and poor growth since 2-months of age. Serum biochemistry revealed a marked elevation in creatine kinase...

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Autores principales: Matthias Christen, Victoria Indzhova, Ling T. Guo, Vidhya Jagannathan, Tosso Leeb, G. Diane Shelton, Josep Brocal
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: MDPI AG 2021
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dog
Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/312d178b26e94686b4736c82686b1855
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Sumario:A 4-month-old, male Italian Greyhound with clinical signs of a neuromuscular disease was investigated. The affected dog presented with an abnormal short-strided gait, generalized muscle atrophy, and poor growth since 2-months of age. Serum biochemistry revealed a marked elevation in creatine kinase activity. Electrodiagnostic testing supported a myopathy. Histopathology of muscle biopsies confirmed a dystrophic phenotype with excessive variability in myofiber size, degenerating fibers, and endomysial fibrosis. A heritable form of congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD) was suspected, and a genetic analysis initiated. We sequenced the genome of the affected dog and compared the data to that of 795 control genomes. This search revealed a private homozygous nonsense variant in <i>LAMA2</i>, XM_022419950.1:c.3285G>A, predicted to truncate 65% of the open reading frame of the wild type laminin α2 protein, XP_022275658.1:p.(Trp1095*). Immunofluorescent staining performed on muscle cryosections from the affected dog confirmed the complete absence of laminin α2 in skeletal muscle. <i>LAMA2</i> loss of function variants were shown to cause severe laminin α2-related CMD in humans, mouse models, and in one previously described dog. Our data together with current knowledge on other species suggest the <i>LAMA2</i> nonsense variant as cause for the CMD phenotype in the investigated dog.