Study Focuses On The Side Effects Of Statins

[Guest guest]

Study Focuses On The Side Effects Of Statins

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/88271.php

Statins are a popular class of drugs used to successfully combat

high cholesterol. However, the rare, but serious, and poorly

understood side effect of skeletal muscle breakdown (a process known

as atrophy) prevents more prevalent use of these drugs. New insight

into the mechanism of statin-induced skeletal muscle atrophy has

been provided by reserachers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical

Center, Boston.

In this study, the authors focused on the activity of atrogin-1, a

gene highly associated with skeletal muscle atrophy. Following

treatment with lovastatin, a commonly prescribed statin, atrogin-1

was induced in cultured mouse muscle cells and in zebrafish embryos.

Furthermore, statin-induced muscle injury in the zebrafish was

prevented by reducing the amount of atrogin-1 expressed. Finally,

when the protein PGC-1a (which protects against skeletal muscle

damage and atrophy) was expressed in zebrafish, both atrogin-1

expression and lovastatin-induced muscle damage were prevented.

These data led the authors to conclude that atrogin-1 is a critical

mediator of statin-induced muscle damage and that inhibiting atrogin-

1 function might protect against this unwanted side effect of

statins.

TITLE: The muscle-specific ubiquitin ligase atrogin-1/MAFbx mediates

statin-induced muscle toxicity