A patient-derived neural stem cell model for hereditary spastic paraplegia
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ABSTRACT: Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP) leads to progressive gait disturbances with lower limb muscle weakness and spasticity. Mutations in SPG4 are a major cause of autosomal-dominant HSP. Spastin, the protein encoded by SPG4, is a microtubule-severing protein and is enriched in the distal axon of corticospinal motor neurons which degenerate in HSP patients. How SPG4 mutations cause axon degeneration in patients is not understood. Multipotent neural stem cells, accessible from patient olfactory mucosa biopsies, provided a new patient-derived cell models for HSP. Olfactory neurosphere-derived cells were obtained from cohorts of HSP patients with, and without, mutations in SPG4 and from healthy controls. Patient cells had extensive changes in expression of cell cycle-related genes and in genes associated with microtubule formation. Despite this, cell proliferation and metabolic functions of the patient cells were similar to controls. Cells with mutated SPG4 had significantly less spastin and acetylated tubulin but significantly more stathmin, a tubulin-depolymerising protein. These cells also significant deficits in the intracellular distribution of peroxisomes and mitochondria, compared to control cells. This model reveals that SPG4-HSP patient-derived neural stem/progenitors compensate for the cell cycle-related effects of reduced spastin levels in the nucleus, in part by large changes in gene expression, but failed to correct deficits in organelle trafficking. The results raise the question of whether these deficits arise directly from the loss of spastin or indirectly from the compensation. Patient-derived olfactory stem cells provide a new model for examining the neural consequences of human genetic mutations in their natural setting: at normal gene dosages against normal genetic backgrounds.
ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens
DISEASE(S): normal
SUBMITTER: Nicholas Matigian
PROVIDER: E-TABM-1180 | biostudies-arrayexpress |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress
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