Muscle single-cell analysis reveals that RNA foci accumulation is linked
to muscle dysfunction in patients with myotonic dystrophy type I
Abstract
Single cell analysis has numerous potential applications, for instance
in the context of myotonic dystrophy type I (DM1). This disease is
caused by a CTG expansion in the dystrophia myotonica-protein kinase
(DMPK) gene, with CTG expansion length being heterogeneous not only
between tissues but also between cells in the same tissue. We studied
muscle pathophysiology from five patients with DM1 at single cell level,
including RNA foci (i.e., nuclear DMPK-transcribed aggregates that trap
proteins) and splicing alterations (caused by trapping of important
splicing regulator proteins by the RNA foci). Single cell myoblasts were
heterogeneous in RNA foci load, with most showing 0 to 3 foci. The
percentage of myoblasts carrying foci differed among patients, ranging
from 29 to 99%. We found a significant direct correlation between mean
and median number of RNA foci in myoblasts and patients’ endurance
capacity (r=-0.975, p=0.005). Although the expression of DMPK and MBNL1
transcripts was variable among the myoblasts, no relationship was found
between RNA foci number and their expression in individual cells. CTG
size in muscle correlated with patients´ disease onset. In summary,
single cell analysis poses some technical challenges but allows an
in-depth analysis of heterogeneous molecular alterations in patients
with DM1.