Department of Microbiology & Immunology
University of Illinois
Chicago
- Through cloning and sequence analysis, researchers have identified the primary gene of the hereditary disease muscular dystrophy, thus leading to the characterizing of the primary protein product. Deletions contributing to an absence of the polypeptide dystrophin (0.002% of total muscle protein and 3,685 amino acids long) on the inner surface of the plasma membrane appear to be the primary cause for two types of muscular dystrophy. The polypeptide may play cytoskeletal roles, since it is sequence-related to spectrin and à-actinin.
A.P. Monaco, "Dystrophin, the protein product of the Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy gene," Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 14, 412-5, October 1989. (Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London)
O. Olsson, A. Escher, G. Sandberg, J. Schell, et al., "Engineering of monomeric bacterial luciferases by fusion of luxA and luxB genes in Vibrio harveyi," Gene, 81 (2), 335-47, October 1989. (University of Ume , ...
