Unraveling Metabolic Involvement in Facioscapulohumeral Dystrophy Through Metabolomics

The pathogenesis of facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD), one of the most prevalent types of inherited muscle disease, is unknown. The reasons underlying its significant clinical heterogeneity, incomplete penetrance, and sex specific differences in the age of onset, are not currently understood. While metabolic changes associated with this disease have so far deserved little attention, recent studies have pinpointed significant metabolic dysregulation as an emerging driving mechanism in the pathophysiology of this untreatable disease. To test this hypothesis, we will perform a deep metabolic phenotyping in a large cohort of highly clinically characterized FSHD patients at different stage of disease and age/sex-matched controls by state-of-art plasma metabolomic and mitochondrial biomarker profiling. These data will allow attributing specific metabolomic signatures to different stages of the disease in each sex. Metabolic pathway analysis will allow gaining insights into the type of metabolic dysregulation associated with the disease pathogenesis, leading to the identification of targeted metabolic/nutritional interventions and biomarker discovery.