, 2003). Mbnl2 constitutive knockout lines were generated by mating chimeric males to a CMV-cre transgenic line ( Figure 1A). Genomic DNA blot analysis confirmed the presence of

the disrupted allele in heterozygous and homozygous knockout mice ( Figure S1D). Ablation of full-length Mbnl2 mRNA expression in the homozygous knockouts was confirmed by RT-PCR ( Figure 1B). While a potential alternative initiation codon exists in exon 3 ( Figure S1C), immunoblot analysis using a monoclonal antibody (mAb) that recognizes all annotated Mbnl2 isoforms demonstrated a complete absence of Mbnl2 protein in all Mbnl2ΔE2/ΔE2 tissues examined ( Figure 1C). Therefore, Mbnl2ΔE2/ΔE2 lines are functional nulls and will selleck products be subsequently referred to as Mbnl2 knockouts. Although Mbnl1 protein is expressed at similar levels in adult skeletal and heart muscle (Figure 1C) and throughout postnatal development (Ladd et al., 2005), Mbnl2 protein expression in adult muscle is low compared to other tissues (Figure 1C). Trichostatin A concentration This result is in agreement with prior studies showing that Mbnl2 protein expression is downregulated during myogenic differentiation of C2C12 myoblasts (Bland et al., 2010; Holt et al., 2009). Mbnl2 knockout

adults were small at weaning ( Figure 1A, postnatal day [P] 21) but were normal in weight by P29 ( Figure S2A). Interestingly, DMSXL homozygous mice, which express a human DMPK transgene almost with a CTG1200-1700 expansion, are also small ( Gomes-Pereira et al., 2007). Mbnl2 knockouts did not develop overt skeletal muscle pathology or motor deficits, as assayed by rotarod analysis, prior to 6 months of age ( Figure S2B). Although a few centralized nuclei were detectable in muscle cells of 3- to 5-month-old Mbnl2 knockout mice ( Figure S2C), myotonia was absent and the expression levels and spatial distribution of the muscle chloride channel Clcn1 was normal

( Figure S2D). Moreover, exons controlled by Mbnl1 in skeletal muscle and heart showed normal splicing patterns in Mbnl2 knockout adult mice ( Figures 1D and 1E). We conclude that if Mbnl2 functions as a splicing factor in skeletal muscle during the neonate to adult transition, its targets include few, if any, of the events known to be perturbed in DM muscle ( Du et al., 2010) and that loss of Mbnl2 alone does not significantly contribute to DM-like skeletal muscle pathology. Since our studies were performed on Mbnl2 knockouts less than 7 months of age, we cannot exclude the possibility that loss of Mbnl2 expression contributes to pathology in aging skeletal muscle. Hypersomnia, or excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), and associated perturbations in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep patterns are among the most characteristic nonmuscle features of DM (Ciafaloni et al., 2008; Yu et al., 2011).