Which is the underlying mechanism for exon skipping used to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy?
Antisense-mediated exon skipping therapy is a promising therapeutic approach that uses short DNA-like molecules called antisense oligonucleotides (AOs) to skip over/splice out the mutated part of the gene to produce a shortened but functional dystrophin protein. Many Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patients need exon skipping of multiple exons in order to restore the reading frame, depending on how many base pairs the mutated exon(s) and adjacent exons have.