New approach for diagnostic of Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy based on PCR

Relevance. Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is one of the most common muscular dystrophies. In 95% of cases, the disease is associated with partial deletion of the array of the D4Z4 repeats on one of the alleles of the 4th chromosome. The existing diagnostic methods of Southern blotting and molecular combing are quite resource-and time-consuming. At the moment, molecular genetic diagnostic of FSHD is not provided on the territory of the Russian Federation. Aim: to find new approaches for molecular genetic diagnostic of FSHD acceptable for use in standard molecular genetic laboratories Materials and methods: DNA isolated in agarose plugs and treated by the EcoRI restriction enzyme. DNA fragments then were separated by pulse field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) in agarose gel. After PFGE, the agarose gel was fragmented and used as a matrix for PCR. The identity of the obtained PCR products to the sequence of the D4Z4 repeats of the 4th chromosome was confirmed by sequencing by Sanger. Results. The PFGE protocol is optimized in such a way that, after all stages, DNA in agarose gel is suitable for use as a matrix for PCR. We achieve a specific amplification of the control DNA matrices of the 4th chromosome and confirm belonging of the PCR products to the sequence of D4Z4 repeats of the 4th chromosome by the Senger sequencing. Conclusions. This paper shows the possibility of using DNA in agarose gel after PFGE as a matrix for detection of D4Z4 repeats by PCR. The presented PCR system specifically amplify sequence of the 4th chromosome D4Z4 repeats. Using this PCR system and genomic DNA of a patient with a known length of the D4Z4 repeats array, a successful diagnosis of FSHD was performed. Thus, we propose a new approach for FSHD diagnostic, acceptable for use in standard molecular genetic laboratories.

миодистрофия Ландузи-Дежерина, повторы D4Z4, ПЦР, диагностика, Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), D4Z4 repeats, PCR, diagnostic