Inhibition of RNA splicing triggers CHMP7 nuclear entry impacting TDP-43 function and leading to onset of ALS (RNA-Seq).
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ABSTRACT: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been linked to nucleoporin loss in patient neurons. In the ESCRT-III pathway, CHMP7 protein accumulation in the nucleus triggers ALS by damaging nuclear pores and disrupting cellular transport. Genes controlling CHMP7's nuclear presence remain unidentified. Our Craft-ID analysis revealed that RNA binding proteins involved in assembling small nuclear ribonucleoprotein particles control CHMP7 nuclear localization. This regulation ultimately impacts splicing processes and can lead to pore injury. Using IP-MS, we discovered that CHMP7 interacts with the survival of motor neuron (SMN) complex (SmD1-3, Gemins), mediated by U1 snRNP and direct interactions between CHMP7. Reducing expression of the core SMN complex component SmD1 was observed in ALS iPSC- Motor Neurons (MNs), affecting CHMP7 localization. However, restoring its levels can rescue the cytoplasmic localization of CHMP7 in sALS iPSC-MNs. Our discoveries hint at an early ALS pathway involving SMN core complex dysregulation, influencing disease onset.
Project description:Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been linked to nucleoporin loss in patient neurons. In the ESCRT-III pathway, CHMP7 protein accumulation in the nucleus triggers ALS by damaging nuclear pores and disrupting cellular transport. Genes controlling CHMP7's nuclear presence remain unidentified. Our Craft-ID analysis revealed that RNA binding proteins involved in assembling small nuclear ribonucleoprotein particles control CHMP7 nuclear localization. This regulation ultimately impacts splicing processes and can lead to pore injury. Using IP-MS, we discovered that CHMP7 interacts with the survival of motor neuron (SMN) complex (SmD1-3, Gemins), mediated by U1 snRNP and direct interactions between CHMP7. Reducing expression of the core SMN complex component SmD1 was observed in ALS iPSC- Motor Neurons (MNs), affecting CHMP7 localization. However, restoring its levels can rescue the cytoplasmic localization of CHMP7 in sALS iPSC-MNs. Our discoveries hint at an early ALS pathway involving SMN core complex dysregulation, influencing disease onset.
Project description:Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is linked to the reduction of certain nucleoporins in neurons. Increased nuclear localization of charged multivesicular body protein 7 (CHMP7), a protein involved in nuclear pore surveillance, has been identified as a key factor damaging nuclear pores and disrupting transport. Using CRISPR-based microRaft, followed by gRNA identification (CRaft-ID), we discovered 55 RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) that influence CHMP7 localization, including SmD1, a survival of motor neuron (SMN) complex component. Immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry (IP-MS) and enhanced crosslinking and immunoprecipitation (CLIP) analyses revealed CHMP7’s interactions with SmD1, small nuclear RNAs, and splicing factor mRNAs in motor neurons (MNs). ALS induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-MNs show reduced SmD1 expression, and inhibiting SmD1/SMN complex increased CHMP7 nuclear localization. Crucially, overexpressing SmD1 in ALS iPSC-MNs restored CHMP7’s cytoplasmic localization and corrected STMN2 splicing. Our findings suggest that early ALS pathogenesis is driven by SMN complex dysregulation.
Project description:We established several iPSCs from healthy donors, familial ALS (FALS) patients, and sporadic ALS (SALS) patients. Using our differentiation protocol originally developed, we differentiated these iPSCs toward spinal motor neurons (MNs) and reproduced ALS pathology in a dish. In addition, we screened a drug candidate which suppressed the detected ALS-related phenotypes of these ALS models. For clarifying the molecular mechanisms of the ALS pathologies and the screened drug, we used microarrays to detail the global program of gene expression reflecting the MN pathology of FALS/SALS, and carefully compared with healthy donors and/or drug-treated ALS models based on their expression profiles.
Project description:Sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (sALS) is the most common (~90%) form of ALS. There are no animal models of sALS and exact molecular mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we elucidate gene-expression profiles in laser capture microdissected enriched surviving motor neurons (MNs) from sALS lumbar spinal cords in patients who had rostral onset and caudal progression. A strong signature was detected and immunological signals were computationally filtered. The filtered dataset showed clustering groups that were significantly explained by levels of phosphorylated TDP-43 (pTDP-43). Transcriptome-pathology correlations and enhanced crosslinking and immunoprecipitation combined with sequencing (eCLIP-seq) identified that Casein kinase 1ε (CSNK1E) had the highest correlation with pTDP-43 status and TDP-43 binding in its 3’UTR. Furthermore, CSNK1E interacted with TDP-43 on protein level and its overexpression lead to increased cytoplasmic pTDP-43 accumulations in iPSC-MNs, suggesting CSNK1E directly mediates TDP-43 phosphorylation. Therefore, we report an essential framework for molecular disease classification and transcriptome – pathology correlation in sALS to identify candidate genes for elucidating disease mechanisms and potential therapeutic interventions.
Project description:Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive motor neuron (MN) degenerative disease with a major pathological feature of cytoplasmic TDP-43 aggregation. However, the mechanisms underlying TDP-43 proteinopathy are still largely unknown. We performed in vitro differentiation of ALS-induced pluripotent stem cells (ALS-iPSCs; carrying the TDP-43M337V mutation) and isogenic controls and found upregulation of paraspeckle-associated lncRNA NEAT1 isoforms in the ALS-iPSC-derived MNs (ALS-iPSC-MNs). Intriguingly, the upregulated NEAT1 isoforms were mislocalized to the cytoplasm of ALS-iPSC-MNs, and the cytoplasmic NEAT1 provoked TDP-43 and TDP-43M337V liquid-liquid phase separation, generating long-lived protein condensates. These condensates had reduced mobility and were converted into aggregates, finally co-aggregating with phospho-TDP-43. Disruption of NEAT1 expression reduced its cytoplasmic levels and also reduced the levels of TDP-43/TDP-43M337V condensates. In 3D neuromuscular organoids with the TDP-43M337V mutation, treatment with NEAT1-antisense oligonucleotides (NEAT1-ASO) promoted neuromuscular junction formation and function, as well as muscle contractility. Furthermore, treatment of TDP-43Q331K mice with Neat1-ASO attenuated TDP-43 pathology in spinal cord and preserved motor function. These findings suggest that NEAT1 plays an important role in TDP-43-associated pathology, and NEAT1-ASO may attenuate pathological TDP-43 aggregation to prevent motor neuron degeneration and muscle weakness in ALS.
Project description:To discover RBPs with increased insolubility in a human ALS model, we applied a well established dual-SMAD inhibition-based protocol (Fang et al., 2019; Markmiller et al., 2021; Markmiller et al., 2018; Martinez et al., 2016) to generate iPSC-MN from six control iPSC lines, from four iPSC lines originating from two sALS patients, and from two iPSC lines originating from fALS patients with pathogenic variants in the TARDBP gene (Table S1; Figure S1A). No difference in differentiation capacity was observed (Figure S1B-G), resulting in average 40% ISL1+ MN (Figures S1G), comparable to numbers observed in large scale MN differentation studies (Baxi et al., 2022). The susceptibility of ALS MN to sodium arsenite-induced stress was not changed (Figure S1H and I). Next, we asked which proteins exhibit an increased insolubility in our ALS iPSC-MN. We fractioned iPSC- MN by lysis in radio-immunoprecipitation assay (RIPA) buffer, followed by ultracentrifugation and solubilization of RIPA insoluble proteins in urea buffer. The ultracentrifugation-cleared RIPA insoluble protein fraction is widely used to study protein insolubility in the context of neurodegeneration (Nuber et al., 2013; Walker et al., 2015). Label-free mass spectrometry of the insoluble protein fraction was utilized to identify proteins that are insoluble in sALS and fALS, relative to control iPSC-MNs (Figure 1A). Gene ontology (GO) analysis of the 100 proteins (top 2.9% of all detected proteins) with the highest label free quantification (LFQ) intensities in controls (Figure S1J) revealed that ‘unfolded protein binding’ (corrected P = 7.95 x 10-16) and ‘structural constituent of cytoskeleton’ (corrected P = 1.47 x 10-10) were among the 10 most significantly enriched GO terms, indicating enrichment of insoluble proteins (Figure S1K). Principle component analysis of the insoluble fractions did not distinguish ALS from control samples, suggesting that the overall insoluble proteome is not changed (Figure S1L). At threshold P ≤ 0.05 (Welch’s t-test) and fold change ≥ 1.5, we identified 88 proteins enriched in the insoluble fraction in ALS samples relative to control (Figure 1B). When the sample labels were randomly shuffled, we observed an average of 7.5 proteins (~12-fold lower) as differentially enriched at the same statistical thresholds, indicative of an ALS-specific protein insolubility pattern (Figure 1C). The 88 candidate proteins included cytoskeletal components and motor proteins, functional categories associated with prominent ALS in vitro phenotypes (Akiyama et al., 2019; Egawa et al., 2012; Fazal et al., 2021; Guo et al., 2017; Kreiter et al., 2018) (Figure 1D). Notably, 5 RBPs, NOVA1, ELAVL4, FXR2, RBFOX2, and RBFOX3 were also enriched (Figure 1D). The NOVA1 paralog NOVA2 was significantly enriched (P = 0.03) but did not meet our enrichment threshold (fold change = 1.36). Interestingly, insoluble TDP-43 protein was not significantly different in ALS and control (P = 0.98; fold change = 0.97). Western blot analysis confirmed the increase in insolubility of NOVA1, NOVA2, ELAVL4, RBFOX2 and RBFOX3 (Figure 1E and 1F). The soluble protein levels of NOVA1 and NOVA2 were also increased (Figure 1F). In conclusion, we identified 5 RBPs with elevated insoluble protein levels of ALS-iPSC-MNs.
Project description:Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a motor neuron (MN) disorder caused by mutations in SMN1. The reasons of MNs selective vulnerability linked to SMN reduction remain unclear. To address this question, we performed deep RNA sequencing on SMA human MNs to detect specific altered splicing/expressed genes and to identify the presence of a common sequence motif in these genes. Many deregulated genes, such as Neurexin and Synaptotagmin families, are implicated in critical MN-function like axonogenesis and synapses. Motif-enrichment analyses of differentially expressed/spliced genes, including Neurexin2 (NRXN2), revealed a common Motif, Motif-7, which is target of SYNCRIP protein. Interestingly, SYNCRIP interacts only with full-length SMN, binding and modulating several MN transcripts, including SMN itself. SYNCRIP overexpression rescued SMA-MNs, due to the consequent increase of SMN and their down-stream target NRXN2, through a positive loop mechanism. SMN/SYNCRIP complex through motif-7 might account for selective MN degeneration and represent a potential therapeutic target.
Project description:Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is characterized by low levels of survival motor neuron (SMN) protein and loss of motor neurons (MN); however, the underlying mechanism that links SMN deficiency to selective motor neuronal dysfunction is still largely unknown. We present here, for the first time, a comprehensive quantitative mass spectrometry study that covers the development of iPSC-derived MNs from both healthy individuals and SMA patients. We show an altered proteomic signature in SMA already at early stages during MN differentiation, associated with ER to Golgi transport, mRNA splicing and protein ubiquitination, in line with known SMA phenotypes. These alterations in the SMA proteome increase further towards later stages of MN differentiation. In addition, we find differences in altered protein expression between SMA patients, which however, have similar biological functions. Finally, we highlight several known SMN-binding partners as well as proteins associated with ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis and evaluate their expression changes during MN differentiation. Altogether, our work provides a rich resource of molecular events during early stages of MN differentiation, containing potentially therapeutically interesting protein expression profiles for SMA.
Project description:Proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an early onset, autosomal recessive motor neuron disease caused by loss of or mutation in SMN1 (survival motor neuron 1). Despite understanding the genetic basis underlying this disease, it is still not known why motor neurons (MNs) are selectively affected by the loss of the ubiquitously expressed SMN protein. Using a mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) model for severe SMA, the RNA transcript profiles (transcriptomes) between control and severe SMA (SMN2+/+;mSmn-/-) mESC-derived MNs were compared in this study using massively parallel RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). The MN differentiation efficiencies between control and severe SMA mESCs were similar. RNA-Seq analysis identified 3094 upregulated and 6964 downregulated transcripts in SMA mESC-derived MNs when compared against control cells. Pathway and network analysis of the differentially expressed RNA transcripts showed that pluripotency and cell proliferation transcripts were significantly increased in SMA MNs while transcripts related to neuronal development and activity were reduced. The differential expression of selected transcripts such as Crabp1, Crabp2 and Nkx2.2 was validated in a second mESC model for SMA as well as in the spinal cords of low copy SMN2 severe SMA mice. Furthermore, the levels of these selected transcripts were restored in high copy SMN2 rescue mouse spinal cords when compared against low copy SMN2 severe SMA mice. These findings suggest that SMN deficiency affects processes critical for normal development and maintenance of MNs. RNA profiles were generated from FACS-purified control and SMA mESC-derived motor neurons (n=3/genotype) by deep sequencing using Illumina HighSeq 2500