The Involvement of mir-146 in Microglial Cells (EOC 13.31) During Prion Disease
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ABSTRACT: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are evolutionary conserved, non-coding, gene regulatory RNA molecules found in both plants and animals and amongst almost every cell and tissue type. They are about 22 nucleotides long and are involved in silencing of mRNA through sequence specific binding to the 3’ untranslated region (UTR) of the mRNA subsequently causing translational repression and/or will promote the degradation of protein-coding mRNA. Specifically, the miRNA family, mir-146 a/b, has been previously found to be involved in the regulation of the innate immune response by functioning as a negative regulator to help fine-tune the immune response. Microglial cells are the macrophage of the brain participating as major players of the innate immune response. During prion disease, no immune response is mounted against PrPSc possibly due to its similarity to host PrPc and thus, the host immune response would be suppressed and tightly regulated. Therefore, an increased expression of mir-146 by microglial cells during prion disease may function as one of these negative regulators. Our objective of this experiment is to use DNA microarrays to investigate the gene regulation of mir-146 previously found upregulated in our studies of mouse brain tissue specifically in microglial cells during prion disease with the aim of having a better understanding of prion pathobiology and a potential target for therapeutic intervention.
Project description:MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are evolutionary conserved, non-coding, gene regulatory RNA molecules found in both plants and animals and amongst almost every cell and tissue type. They are about 22 nucleotides long and are involved in silencing of mRNA through sequence specific binding to the 3’ untranslated region (UTR) of the mRNA subsequently causing translational repression and/or will promote the degradation of protein-coding mRNA. Specifically, the miRNA family, mir-146 a/b, has been previously found to be involved in the regulation of the innate immune response by functioning as a negative regulator to help fine-tune the immune response. Microglial cells are the macrophage of the brain participating as major players of the innate immune response. During prion disease, no immune response is mounted against PrPSc possibly due to its similarity to host PrPc and thus, the host immune response would be suppressed and tightly regulated. Therefore, an increased expression of mir-146 by microglial cells during prion disease may function as one of these negative regulators. Our objective of this experiment is to use DNA microarrays to investigate the gene regulation of mir-146 previously found upregulated in our studies of mouse brain tissue specifically in microglial cells during prion disease with the aim of having a better understanding of prion pathobiology and a potential target for therapeutic intervention. Mir-146 expression was confirmed via in situ analysis of brain tissue and was further investigated in a microglial murine cell line (EOC 13.31). To mimic mir-146 upregulation during prion disease, mir-146 a & b were overexpressed in EOCs using a lipid based reverse transfection system. Furthermore, endogeneous mir-146 was knocked down as another method to help confirm the mRNA targets affected by mir-146. Simultaneously, another experiment was performed for the investigation of its involvement in the innate immune response by stimulating the EOCs with differing concentrations of LPS from E.coli (055:B5). Total RNA was collected and prepared at several timepoints and the levels of expression of both mir-146 a & b was tested via qRT-PCR. The RNA collected from the EOCs from each condition were used as target material for dual-color, competitive hybridization to Agilent whole mouse genome 4x44K oligo arrays. All the significant targets found on the mircorarrays were compared against the various conditions to find a consensus of affected mir-146 mRNA targets.
Project description:Sheep scrapie (Sc) is the classical transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (prion disease). The conversion of normal cellular prion protein (PrPC) to disease-associated prion protein (PrPSc) is a fundamental component of prion disease pathogenesis. The molecular mechanisms contributing to prion diseases and the impact of PrPSc accumulation on cellular biology are not fully understood. To define the molecular changes associated with PrPSc accumulation, primary sheep microglia were inoculated with PrPSc and then the transcriptional profile of these PrPSc-accumulating microglial cells was compared to the profile of PrPSc-lacking microglial cells using the Affymetrix Bovine Genome Array. The experimental design included three biological replicates, each with three technical replicates, and samples that were collected at the point of maximal PrPSc accumulation levels as measured by ELISA. The array analysis revealed 19 upregulated genes and 30 downregulated genes in PrPSc-accumulating microglia. Three transcripts (CCL2, SGK1, and AASDHPPT) were differentially regulated in a direction similar to previous reports from mouse or human models, whereas the response of three other transcripts (MT1E, NR4A1, PKP2) conflicted with previous reports. Overall, the results demonstrated a limited transcriptional response to PrPSc accumulation, when compared to microglia and macrophage cultures infected with other agents such as viruses and bacteria. This is the first microarray-based analysis of prion accumulation in primary cells derived from a natural TSE-host. Keywords: disease state analysis
Project description:We used zebrafish embryos as an in vivo system to investigate the role of the microRNA-146 family (consisting of 2 members miR-146a and miR-146b) in the innate immune response to S. typhimurium infection. To determine the role of miR-146 microRNAs in the response to S. typhimurium infection we used Illumina RNA sequencing to compare the mRNA expression profiles of control embryos versus embryos with knockdown of miR-146a and miR-146b. RNA sequencing analysis of miR-146 knockdown embryos showed no major effects on pro-inflammatory gene expression or on the expression of transcriptional regulators and signal transduction components of the immune response. In contrast, apoliprotein-mediated lipid transport emerged as an infection-inducible pathway under miR-146 knockdown conditions, suggesting a function of miR-146 in regulating lipid metabolism during inflammation.
Project description:Sheep scrapie (Sc) is the classical transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (prion disease). The conversion of normal cellular prion protein (PrPC) to disease-associated prion protein (PrPSc) is a fundamental component of prion disease pathogenesis. The molecular mechanisms contributing to prion diseases and the impact of PrPSc accumulation on cellular biology are not fully understood. To define the molecular changes associated with PrPSc accumulation, primary sheep microglia were inoculated with PrPSc and then the transcriptional profile of these PrPSc-accumulating microglial cells was compared to the profile of PrPSc-lacking microglial cells using the Affymetrix Bovine Genome Array. The experimental design included three biological replicates, each with three technical replicates, and samples that were collected at the point of maximal PrPSc accumulation levels as measured by ELISA. The array analysis revealed 19 upregulated genes and 30 downregulated genes in PrPSc-accumulating microglia. Three transcripts (CCL2, SGK1, and AASDHPPT) were differentially regulated in a direction similar to previous reports from mouse or human models, whereas the response of three other transcripts (MT1E, NR4A1, PKP2) conflicted with previous reports. Overall, the results demonstrated a limited transcriptional response to PrPSc accumulation, when compared to microglia and macrophage cultures infected with other agents such as viruses and bacteria. This is the first microarray-based analysis of prion accumulation in primary cells derived from a natural TSE-host. Experiment Overall Design: Primary sheep microglial cells were either inoculated with PrPSc (Inoc) or sham-inoculated (Mock) Experiment Overall Design: Three biological replicates per treatment. Experiment Overall Design: Three technical replicates per biological replicate. Experiment Overall Design: biological replicate: Inoc12A, Inoc12B.2, Inoc12C Experiment Overall Design: biological replicate: Mock12A, Mock12B.2, Mock12C Experiment Overall Design: technical replicate - extract: Inoc12A.1, Inoc12A.2, Inoc12A.3 Experiment Overall Design: technical replicate - extract: Inoc12B.2.1, Inoc12B.2.2, Inoc12B.2.3 Experiment Overall Design: technical replicate - extract: Inoc12C.1, Inoc12C.2, Inoc12C.3 Experiment Overall Design: technical replicate - extract: Mock12A.1, Mock12A.2, Mock12A.3 Experiment Overall Design: technical replicate - extract: Mock12B.2.1, Mock12B.2.2, Mock12B.2.3 Experiment Overall Design: technical replicate - extract: Mock12C.1, Mock12C.2, Mock12C.3
Project description:We used zebrafish embryos as an in vivo system to investigate the role of the microRNA-146 family (consisting of 2 members miR-146a and miR-146b) in the innate immune response to S. typhimurium infection. To determine the role of miR-146 microRNAs in the response to S. typhimurium infection we used Illumina RNA sequencing to compare the mRNA expression profiles of control embryos versus embryos with knockdown of miR-146a and miR-146b. RNA sequencing analysis of miR-146 knockdown embryos showed no major effects on pro-inflammatory gene expression or on the expression of transcriptional regulators and signal transduction components of the immune response. In contrast, apoliprotein-mediated lipid transport emerged as an infection-inducible pathway under miR-146 knockdown conditions, suggesting a function of miR-146 in regulating lipid metabolism during inflammation. Embryos were injected at the one cell stage with a combination of two morpholinos targeting miR-146a and miR-146b, or with the standard control morpholino from GeneTools. Subsequently, at 28 hours post fertilzation (hpf) they were infected by injecting 200-250 colony forming units of S. typhimurium strain SL1027 into the caudal vein, or mock-injected with PBS. RNA was isolated at 8 hours post injection (hpi) for Illumina RNAseq analysis. Two independent experiments were performed for RNAseq analysis of biological duplicates.
Project description:Although ectopic overexpression of miRNAs can influence mammary normal and cancer stem cells (SCs/CSCs), their physiological relevance remains uncertain. Here, we found that the miR-146 family is linked to SC identity, since: i) their expression is very high in SCs/CSCs from human/mouse primary mammary tissues; correlates with the basal-like breast cancer subtype, which typically has a high CSC content; and specifically distinguishes cells with SC/CSC identity; ii) miR-146 depletion reduces SC/CSC self-renewal in vitro and the number of tumor-initiating cells in vivo. Analysis of the transcriptional effects of miR-146 in breast SC-like cells revealed a complex network of highly connected miR-146 targets related to quiescence, transcription and metabolic pathways (one-carbon pool, purine synthesis and folate metabolism). As predicted by our analysis, SCs/CSCs display innate resistance to anti-folate therapy that can be reversed by miR-146 depletion, unmasking a “hidden vulnerability” that could be exploited for the development of anti-CSC therapies.
Project description:Prion diseases are rare, neurological disorders caused by the misfolding of the cellular prion protein (PrPC). The misfolded conformers aggregate into cytotoxic fibrils (PrPSc) that facilitate the conversion of additional prion proteins into their misfolded form. Intracellular PrPSc aggregates primarily accumulate within late endosomes and lysosomes, organelles that participate in the degradation and turnover of a large subset of the proteome. Thus, intracellular accumulation of PrPSc aggregates have the potential to globally influence protein degradation kinetics. We have analyzed the proteome-wide effect of prion infection on protein degradation rates in N2a neuroblastoma cells by dynamic stable isotopic labeling with amino acids in cell culture (dSILAC) and bottom-up proteomics to quantify the degradation rates of more than 4700 proteins in prion-infected and uninfected cells. As expected, the degradation rate of the prion protein is significantly decreased upon aggregation in infected cells. The data indicate that dilution due to cell division, rather than degradation, is the dominant factor in clearance of PrPSc in infected N2a cells. Conversely, the degradation kinetics of the remainder of the N2a proteome generally increases upon infection. This effect occurs concurrently with increases in the cellular activities of autophagy and lysosomal hydrolases. The resulting enhancement in proteome flux may play a role in the survival of N2a cells during prion infection.
Project description:Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) is the most prevalent form of human prion disease and it is characterized by the presence of neuronal loss, spongiform degeneration, chronic inflammation and the accumulation of misfolded and pathogenic prion protein (PrPSc). The molecular mechanisms underlying these alterations are largely unknown, but the presence of intracellular neuronal calcium (Ca+2) overload, a general feature in models of prion diseases, is suggested to play a key role in prion pathogenesis. Here we describe the presence of massive regulation of Ca+2 responsive genes in sCJD brain tissue, accompanied by two Ca+2-dependent processes: endoplasmic reticulum stress and the activation of the cysteine proteases Calpains 1/2. Pathogenic Calpain activation in sCJD is linked to the cleavage of their cellular substrates, impaired autophagy and lysosomal damage, which is partially reversed by Calpain inhibition in a cellular prion model. Calpain 1 treatment enhances seeding activity of PrPSc in a prion conversion assay. Neuronal lysosomal impairment caused by Calpain over activation leads to the release of the lysosomal protease Cathepsin S that in sCJD mainly localises in axons. Additionally, massive Cathepsin S overexpression is detected in microglial cells. Alterations in Ca+2 homeostasis and activation of Calpain-Cathepsin axis already occur at pre-clinical stages of the disease as detected in a humanized sCJD mouse model. Altogether our work indicates that unbalanced Calpain-Cathepsin activation is a relevant contributor to the pathogenesis of sCJD at multiple molecular levels and a potential target for therapeutic intervention.
Project description:This study reports on infection-inducible miRNAs in zebrafish. Using a custom-designed microarray platform for miRNA expression we found that miRNAs of the miR-21, miR-29, and miR-146 families were commonly induced by infection of zebrafish embryos with Salmonella typhimurium and by infection of adult fish with Mycobacterium marinum.