Drosophila model of myosin myopathy rescued by overexpression of a TRIM-protein family member

Sammanfattning: Laing distal myopathy is inherited in an autosomal dominant manner usually before the age of five that initially involves the dorsiflexion in the ankles’ and in big toes to the finger extensors. Weakness of the flexor muscles in the neck is seen in most affected individuals and mild facial weakness is also often present. Hypertrophic or dilated cardiomyopathy, starting at birth to respectively second or third decade of life, is the symptom in the affected humans.This study performed on Drosophila melanogaster, has evaluated whether feeding MuRF1 enzyme (which has a similar role as ABBA enzyme) to Drosophila larvae, in different concentrations, will have a positive effect on the larvae’s muscular abilities through an analysis of their manifestation, the distance they manage to crawl and the time it takes for them to turn from a ventral up to dorsal up position.The result show no significant impact on larvae ability to turn or crawl between different groups fed with MuRF1 enzyme, nor between the two control groups, wild larvae and mutated larvae. Other studies have proven that there is a significant difference in muscular ability between wild and mutated larvae, so explanations to why this study did not manage to replicate these results were evaluated. The study found that how many days has passed since hatching has a significant impact on performance of turning and crawling for wild larvae that are not treated with enzyme.There are a number of improvement suggestions to the experimental design and the methodology to enable a proper evaluation of the research aim of this thesis. Future research on the topic should implement these and redo the experiments and measurements of this study. In addition, the quantity of larvae that reaches pupa stage should be captured to evaluate whether the MuRF1 enzyme has a positive impact on mutated larvae reaching pupation stage. The most important parts of the improvement proposals to measure the ability of larvae when they are about the same age, as this was proven with statistical significance to have an impact on crawling and turning.