
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 24, 1990                   TAG: 9005240118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

STUDY FINDS POSSIBLE FIRST STEP IN MD

The most severe form of muscular dystrophy may begin when a key protein is destroyed and cannot anchor itself on the surface of muscle cells, a new study suggests.

Without that protein the cells may not be able to handle calcium normally, leading to the muscle destruction that marks the disease, researchers said.

Further study of the disease process may provide new leads for therapies, said researcher Kevin Campbell.

He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. He and colleagues report the work in today's issue of the British journal Nature.

The work dealt with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common and severe form. It is a genetic disorder that strikes boys almost exclusively, appearing in about one in every 3,500 male births in the United States. - Associated Press

by CNB