Figure 6. Estrogens antagonize induction of DUX4 targets.

(A and B) mRNA levels by qRT-PCR of TRIM43 (A) and ZSCAN4 (B) in immortalized myoblasts from indicated patients, cultured in differentiation medium without estrogens at the indicated time points. The mRNA levels of each gene in proliferating myoblasts from CTL#1 (time point 0 [T0]) were arbitrarily set to 1. All samples were normalized to GAPDH. (C) mRNA levels by qRT-PCR of TRIM43 and ZSCAN4 in immortalized myoblasts derived from healthy individuals grown as in A and B. The mRNA levels at the time point 0 were set to 1. (A–C) Mean ± SD of 2 independent experiments is shown. (D and E) Fold reduction of TRIM43 (D) and ZSCAN4 (E) levels in FSHD and CTL myoblasts collected after 5 days of culture in differentiation medium in the absence (etOH) or presence of E₂. The mRNA levels upon etOH treatment in FSHD cells were set to 1. ***P < 0.001, 1-sample t test.