Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series: GSE24992: Drosophila brain microRNA expression with age: miRNA profiling GSE25007: Drosophila brain gene expression with age: mRNA profiling GSE25008: Drosophila brain gene expression between wildtype and miR-34 null flies Refer to individual Series. Aging is the most prominent risk factor for human neurodegenerative disease, but underlying mechanisms that connect two processes are less well characterized. With age, the brain undergoes functional decline and perhaps degeneration. Such decline may not just contribute to normal aging, but also enhance susceptibility to and progression of age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, defining intrinsic factors and pathways that underline the normal integrity of the adult nervous system may lead to insights that potentially link aging and neurodegeneration. Here, we report a highly conserved microRNA (miRNA), miR-34, as a modulator of aging and neurodegeneration. Using Drosophila, we show that fly miR-34 expression is brain-enriched and strikingly upregulated with age. Functional studies reveal that, whereas animals without miR-34 are normal as young adults, upon aging, they gradually show late-onset deficits characteristic of accelerated brain aging; these include a transcriptional signature of aged animals, coupled with rapid functional decline, loss of brain integrity, followed by a catastrophic decline in adult viability. Moreover, upregulation of miR-34 protects against neurodegeneration induced by pathogenic human polyglutamine (polyQ) disease protein. We next reveal a dramatic effect of miR-34 to silence the Eip74EF gene of steroid hormone pathways in the adult, which is crucial to maintain the normal aging. Collectively, these data define a miR-34-mediated mechanism that specifically affects long-term integrity of the adult nervous system. miR-34 function in Drosophila may thus present a link that functionally connects aging and neurodegeneration. Our studies implicate essential roles of miRNA- dependent pathways in maintenance of the adult brain, disease pathogenesis and healthy aging.
Project description:Aging is a risk factor for neurodegenerative disease, but precise mechanisms that influence this relationship are still under investigation. Work in Drosophila melanogaster identified the microRNA miR-34 as a modifier of aging and neurodegeneration in the brain. MiR-34 mutants present aspects of early aging, including reduced lifespan, neurodegeneration, and a buildup of the repressive histone mark H3K27me3. To better understand how miR-34 regulated pathways contribute to age-associated phenotypes in the brain, here we transcriptionally profiled the miR-34 mutant brain. This identified that genes associated with translation are dysregulated in the miR-34 mutant. The brains of these animals show increased translation activity, accumulation of protein aggregation markers, and altered autophagy activity. To determine if altered H3K27me3 was responsible for this proteostasis dysregulation, we studied the effects of increased H3K27me3 by mutating the histone demethylase Utx. Reduced Utx activity enhanced neurodegeneration and mimicked the protein accumulation seen in miR-34 mutant brains. However, unlike the miR-34 mutant, Utx mutant brains did not show similar altered autophagy or translation activity, suggesting that additional miR-34-targeted pathways are involved. Transcriptional analysis of predicted miR-34 targets identified Lst8, a subunit of Tor Complex 1 (TORC1), as a potential target. We confirmed that miR-34 regulates the 3’ UTR of Lst8. Biological analysis of miR-34 mutant brains demonstrate that 4E-BP is hyperphosphorylated, consistent with increased Lst8 activity and changes in translation. Together, these results present novel understanding of brain aging and the role of the conserved miRNA miR-34 in impacting proteostasis in the brain with age.
Project description:Aging is a prominent risk factor for neurodegenerative disease, therefore defining mechanisms critical for healthy brain aging should lead to insight into genes that modulate susceptibility to disease. To define such genes, we have pursued analysis of miR-34 mutants in Drosophila. The miR-34 mutant brain displays a gene profile of accelerated aging, and miR-34 upregulation is a potent suppressor of polyglutamine-induced neurodegeneration. We investigated targets of miR-34 to define those important for its functions in mitigating degeneration and impacting health of the brain with age. These studies show that miR-34 targets for silencing two components of polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2)—Pcl and Su(z)12—in the brain with age. PRC2 is a histone methyltransferase that confers the repressive H3K27me3 mark, suggesting that a critical role of miR-34 is to modulate the function of PRC2 to silence key genes in the brain with age. Remarkably, gene expression profiling of the brains of hypomorphic mutants in Enhancer of zeste (E(z)), the enzymatic methyltransferase component of PRC2, revealed a younger brain transcriptome profile and identified the small heat shock proteins as key modulated genes. These findings indicate that PRC2 epigenetic mechanisms impact the susceptibility of the brain to degenerative disease with age, and highlight the role of small heat shock proteins to protect the brain from age-associated decline and disease.
Project description:Ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) is a rare autosomal recessive disease characterized by progressive neurodegeneration and cerebellar ataxia. A-T is causally linked to defects in ATM, a master regulator of the response to and repair of DNA double-strand breaks. The molecular basis of cerebellar atrophy and neurodegeneration in A-T patients is unclear. Here we report and examine the significance of increased PARylation, low NAD+, and mitochondrial dysfunction in ATM-deficient neurons, mice, and worms. Treatments that replenish intracellular NAD+ reduce the severity of A-T neuropathology, normalize neuromuscular function, delay memory loss, and extend lifespan in both animal models. Mechanistically, treatments that increase intracellular NAD+ also stimulate neuronal DNA repair and improve mitochondrial quality via mitophagy. This work links two major theories on aging, DNA damage accumulation, and mitochondrial dysfunction through nuclear DNA damage-induced nuclear-mitochondrial signaling, and demonstrates that they are important pathophysiological determinants in premature aging of A-T, pointing to therapeutic interventions.
Project description:Diverse stresses and aging result in changes in expression levels of microRNAs, suggesting a role for these posttrancriptional regulators of gene expression in stress modulation and longevity. Earlier studies demonstrated a central role for the miR-34 family in promoting cell cycle arrest and cell death following stress in human cells. However, the biological significance of this response was unclear, because wildtype and miR-34 family knockouts tested under a variety of stress conditions showed no difference in cell survival in vitro or in vivo. Here, we addressed this question in C. elegans by analyzing the effect of different stress conditions on phenotype, transcriptome and mir-34 expression in animals deficient in or overexpressing mir-34. We showed that mir-34 upregulation is necessary for developmental arrest, correct morphogenesis, and adaptation to a lower metabolic state to protect animals against stress-related damages. Either deletion or overexpression of mir-34 lead to impaired stress response, which can largely be explained by perturbations in a DAF-16/FOXO target genes. We demonstrate that mir-34 expression is regulated by the insulin signaling pathway via a negative feedback loop between miR-34 and DAF-16/FOXO. We propose that mir-34 provides robustness to stress response programs by controlling noise in the DAF-16/FOXO-regulated gene network.
Project description:The mechanism by which aging induces aortic aneurysm and dissection (AAD) remains unclear. A total of 430 subjects were recruited for screening of differentially expressed plasma microRNAs. We found that miR-1204 was significantly increased in both plasma and aorta of elder patients with AAD, and was positively correlated with age. Cell senescence induced the expression of miR-1204 through p53 interaction with plasmacytoma variant translocation 1, and miR-1204 induced vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) senescence to form a positive feedback loop. miR-1204 aggravated angiotensin II-induced AAD formation, and inhibition of miR-1204 attenuated β-aminopropionitrile monofumarate-induced AAD formation. Mechanistically, miR-1204 directly targeted myosin light chain kinase (MYLK) to promote VSMCs to acquire senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) and lose their contractile phenotype. Overexpression of MYLK reversed miR-1204-induced VSMC senescence, SASP and contractile phenotype changes, and the decrease of transforming growth factor-β signaling pathway. Our findings suggest aging aggravates AAD via miR-1204-MYLK signaling axis.
Project description:We isolated mir-284 from a genetic screen for age-dependent axon degeneration in Drosophila melanogaster. mir-284 levels show a steep decline with aging. Therefore we embarked on a transcriptome-wide analysis after mir-284 depletion in aging flies.
Project description:MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous noncoding small RNAs with important roles in many biological pathways; their generation and activity are under precise regulation. Emerging evidence suggests that miRNA pathways are precisely modulated with controls at the level of transcription, processing, and stability, with miRNA deregulation linked with diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. In the Drosophila miRNA biogenesis pathway, long primary miRNA transcripts undergo sequential cleavage to release the embedded miRNAs. Mature miRNAs are then loaded into Argonaute1 (Ago1) within the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). Intriguingly, we found that Drosophila miR-34 displays multiple isoforms that differ at the 3′ end, suggesting a novel biogenesis mechanism involving 3′ end processing. To define the cellular factors responsible, we performed an RNA interference (RNAi) screen and identified a putative 3′→5′ exoribonuclease CG9247/nibbler essential for the generation of the smaller isoforms of miR-34. Nibbler (Nbr) interacts with Ago1 and processes miR-34 within RISC. Deep sequencing analysis revealed a larger set of multi-isoform miRNAs that are controlled by nibbler. These findings suggest that Nbr-mediated 3′ end processing represents a critical step in miRNA maturation that impacts miRNA diversity.
Project description:Although transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are thought to be mediated by the pathogenic isoform of the prion protein PrPSc, the molecular mechanism underlying neurodegeneration is poorly understood. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to cause or influence the pathogenesis of several diseases, however, they were not linked to prion disorders yet. We have addressed the regulation of miRNAs in BSE-infected macaques as a model for human Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease. Applying miRNA microarrays and quantitative RT-PCR, we found that two miRNAs, hsa-miR-342 and hsa-miR-494, are upregulated in the brain of BSE-infected monkeys. Predictions of potential target genes revealed functional links to other neurodegenerative disorders with protein aggregation, including Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease. Differential miRNA analysis may be a powerful tool to identify common pathways in the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration.
Project description:Aging is the greatest risk factor for neurodegeneration, but the connection between the two processes remains opaque. This is in part for want of a rigorous way to define physiological age, as opposed to chronological age. Here, we develop a comprehensive metric for physiological age in Drosophila, based on genome-wide expression profiling. We applied this metric to a model of adult-onset neurodegeneration, increased or decreased expression of the activating subunit of the Cdk5 protein kinase, encoded by the gene Cdk5α, the ortholog of mammalian p35. Cdk5α-mediated degeneration was associated with a 27-150% acceleration of the intrinsic rate of aging, depending on the tissue and genetic manipulation. Gene ontology analysis and direct experimental tests revealed that affected age-associated processes included numerous core phenotypes of neurodegeneration, including enhanced oxidative stress and impaired proteostasis. Taken together, our results suggest that Cdk5α-mediated neurodegeneration results from accelerated aging, in combination with cell-autonomous neuronal insults. These data fundamentally recast our picture of the relationship between neurodegeneration and its most prominent risk factor, natural aging.