Transcriptome analysis of in-vitro differentiated myotubes from Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy patients.

Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD) is a genetically and clinically variable disorder. Here we performed transcriptome analysis on 10 EDMD patients covering mutations in 7 EDMD-linked genes, compared to 2 healthy controls. Myoblasts were isolated from muscle biopsies and differentiated in-vitro for 6 days. Differentiated myotubes were isolated, total RNA extracted, and mRNA sequenced. The genes and mutations included were: patient 1 (TMEM214, p.R179H), patient 2 (PLPP7/NET39, p.M92K), patient 3 (SUN1, p.G68D, p.G388S), patient 4 (SYNE1, p.6869*, p.6869*), patient 5 (EMD, p.S58Sfs*1), patient 6 (FHL1, c.688+1G>A), patient 7 (FHL1, p.C224W), patient 8 (FHL1, p.V280M), patient 9 (LMNA, p.T528K), patient 10 (LMNA, p.R571S). The patients were found to segregate into 3 subgroups, defined as: gp1 = patients 1,2,5,7 and 10; gp2 = patients 3,6, and 8; gp3 = patients 4 and 9. Overall design: Transcriptome analysis was performed comparing in-vitro differentiated EDMD patients against healthy controls. All samples were analysed in triplicate (separate in-vitro differentiation experiments). Four types of comparisons were considered: G1 = all EDMD patients as a single group compared to the controls; G10 = each individual patient, in triplicate, compared to the controls; G3 = each patient subgroup against the controls; G3x = each patient subgroup against all other patients.