Penn Researchers Find TRF2 Drives Muscle Repair, With Loss Speeding Duchenne Decline in Mice
Updated
Updated · ScienceDaily · Aug 2
Penn Researchers Find TRF2 Drives Muscle Repair, With Loss Speeding Duchenne Decline in Mice
2 articles · Updated · ScienceDaily · Aug 2
Summary
TRF2 proved essential for muscle stem cells to keep their identity and regenerate injured tissue, according to a Science Advances study from Penn Medicine.
In mouse experiments, removing TRF2 did not kill those cells but depleted their stem-cell program, leaving injured muscle to fill with fat and scar tissue instead of rebuilding.
The same loss accelerated Duchenne muscular dystrophy in mice, worsening muscle deterioration and shortening lifespan.
Researchers found TRF2 acts beyond telomeres by binding gene-regulating regions across the genome, including G-quadruplex DNA structures tied to stem-cell identity.
That mechanism could inform muscular dystrophy therapies and may also help explain why skeletal muscle regenerates well yet rarely develops cancer.