Duchenne型肌营养不良基因治疗研究进展

A review of gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Duchenne型肌营养不良(DMD)是由编码抗肌萎缩蛋白的DMD基因突变导致的X连锁隐性遗传病。它的特点是进行性肌无力和因缺乏抗肌萎缩蛋白而导致的骨骼肌和心肌退化。患儿多于2~5岁起病,常在20岁左右死于心力衰竭或呼吸功能不全。目前,临床上多采用支持疗法改善疾病症状,但并不能改变疾病的最终结局。基因治疗的兴起为该病的治愈提供了希望。本文总结了DMD的基因替代疗法,包括腺相关病毒介导的DMD基因转导技术、肌营养不良蛋白相关蛋白(utrophin)上调技术和成簇规律间隔的短回文重复序列基因编辑技术的研究进展,并为解决腺相关病毒载量、转基因产物的长期有效表达、utrophin蛋白表达量问题提出的建议进行综述,为研究者们进一步研究提供参考。

Duchenne muscular dystrophy（DMD） is an X-linked recessive hereditary disease caused by mutations in the DMD gene that encodes dystrophin. It is characterized by progressive muscle weakness and degeneration of skeletal muscle and myocardium due to the absence of dystrophin. The disease often occurs at the age of 2-5 years, and most children may die of heart failure or respiratory insufficiency at the age of around 20 years. At present, supportive therapy is often used in clinical practice to improve symptoms, but this cannot improve the outcome of this disease. The development of gene therapy brings new hope to the cure of this disease. This article summarizes gene replacement therapy for DMD, including the research advances in DMD gene transduction technology mediated by adeno-associated virus, utrophin protein upregulation technology, and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat gene editing technology, and reviews the recommendations to solve the issues of adeno-associated viral load, long-term effective expression of transgenic products, and utrophin protein expression, in order to provide a reference for further research.