The muscle-specific ubiquitin ligase atrogin-1/MAFbx mediates statin-induced muscle toxicity
J. Clin. Invest. Jun-ichi Hanai, et al. 117:3940 doi:10.1172/JCI32741 [Go to this article.]

Figure 5
Lovastatin treatment disrupts myofiber structure in zebrafish embryos. (A) Zebrafish embryos (20 hpf) were treated with concentrations of lovastatin ranging from 0.025 to 5.0 μM for 12 hours. Embryos were fixed and stained with antimyosin heavy chain antibody (F59) as described in Methods. Representative somite phenotypes are shown. All panels are side views, anterior, left. Original magnification, ×200. (B) Quantitation of muscle damage. Morphological phenotypes shown in A were grouped into 3 classes: class 1 changes include bowing, gap formation, and blocked/disrupted fibers; class 2 changes include irregular fibers and diffuse appearance; class 3 changes are typified by irregular somite boundaries. Percentage of embryos displaying specific class defects as a function of lovastatin concentration are shown. Numbers of embryos quantitated are 151, 178, 163, 185, 189, and 180 for the lovastatin concentrations of 0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.5, 1.0, and 5 μM, respectively.