Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy (EDMD)

A new gene therapy approach to "silencing" disease-causing genetic information has been developed by researchers at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J., and Integrated DNA Technologies in Coralville, Ia.

Mutations in the lamin A/C gene on chromosome 1 and the emerin gene on the X chromosome both can cause Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), but the precise mechanisms by which they do so are still being identified.

Now, a multinational team has found that, in mice with an EDMD-like disease, lamin protein defects interfere with the way cell nuclei normally localize in skeletal-muscle fibers at the point where each fiber receives signals from a nerve cell.