You are working with a mouse model of muscular dystrophy. You have control mice

Question

You are working with a mouse model of muscular dystrophy. You have control mice and mice with the disease in your laboratory. Consider what you would want to test in the mouse and cell cultures of muscle cells to try and figure out what is causing the muscle pathology. Be sure to look up muscular dystrophy to understand the basics of this disease. Use appropriate internet sources (Mayo clinic, *.gov, etc.)

Supporting details: Muscular dystrophy (MD) is a group of muscle diseases that results in increasing weakening and breakdown of skeletal muscles over time. The disorders differ in which muscles are primarily affected, the degree of weakness, how fast they worsen, and when symptoms begin.Cause of DMD. Until the 1980s, little was known about the cause of any of the forms of muscular dystrophy. In 1986, MDA-supported researchers identified a gene on the X chromosome that, when flawed (mutated), causes both Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies.

Explanation / Answer

Ans. Muscular dystrophy is defined as a group of disorders, which leads to progressive weakness and breakdown of muscle mass. Diagnosis can be done by muscle biopsy, DNA testing, blood enzyme tests, elecromyography.

To test mice for muscle dystrophy, we will do muscle biopsy by taking a small amount of muscle sample from both the healthy and disease mice. After diagnosis, sample from healthy mouse will show presence of a functional muscle protein, dystrophin while sample from diseased mouse will not show presence of dystrophin.

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