Project description:Rett syndrome (RTT) is a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder that occurs once in every 10,000-15,000 live female births. Despite intensive research, no effective cure is yet available. Valproic acid (VPA) has been used widely to treat mood disorder, epilepsy, and a growing number of other disorders. In limited clinical studies, VPA has also been used to control seizure in RTT patients with promising albeit somewhat unclear efficacy. In this study we tested the effect of VPA on the neurological symptoms of RTT and discovered that short-term VPA treatment during the symptomatic period could reduce neurological symptoms in RTT mice. We found that VPA restores the expression of a subset of genes in RTT mouse brains, and these genes clustered in neurological disease and developmental disorder networks. Our data suggest that VPA could be used as a drug to alleviate RTT symptoms. Wild type or MeCP2KO mice received daily injections of VPA (300 mg/kg) for 2 weeks. Each experimental condition: WT control, KO treated with VPA (KO+VPA), and KO treated with saline (KO+saline). Half brain samples were retrieved.
Project description:Rett syndrome (RTT) is a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder that occurs once in every 10,000-15,000 live female births. Despite intensive research, no effective cure is yet available. Valproic acid (VPA) has been used widely to treat mood disorder, epilepsy, and a growing number of other disorders. In limited clinical studies, VPA has also been used to control seizure in RTT patients with promising albeit somewhat unclear efficacy. In this study we tested the effect of VPA on the neurological symptoms of RTT and discovered that short-term VPA treatment during the symptomatic period could reduce neurological symptoms in RTT mice. We found that VPA restores the expression of a subset of genes in RTT mouse brains, and these genes clustered in neurological disease and developmental disorder networks. Our data suggest that VPA could be used as a drug to alleviate RTT symptoms.
Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series: GSE24285: Genome-wide Analysis Reveals Mecp2-dependent Regulation of MicroRNAs in a Mouse Model of Rett Syndrome (mm8 chromosomal tiling arrays) GSE24286: Genome-wide Analysis Reveals Mecp2-dependent Regulation of MicroRNAs in a Mouse Model of Rett Syndrome (mm8 promoter tiling arrays) GSE24320: Genome-wide Analysis Reveals Mecp2-dependent Regulation of MicroRNAs in a Mouse Model of Rett Syndrome (high-throughput small RNA sequencing) Refer to individual Series
Project description:Disruption of the MECP2 gene leads to Rett syndrome (RTT), a severe neurological disorder with features of autism. MECP2 encodes a methyl-DNA-binding protein that is proposed to function as a transcriptional repressor, but, despite numerous studies examining neuronal gene expression in MeCP2 mutants, no coherent model has emerged for how MeCP2 regulates transcription. Here we identify a genome-wide length-dependent increase in the expression of long genes in neurons lacking MeCP2. This gene misregulation occurs in human RTT brains and correlates with onset and severity of phenotypes in Mecp2 mutant mice, suggesting that the disruption of long gene expression contributes to RTT pathology. We present evidence that MeCP2 represses long genes by binding to brain-enriched, methylated CA dinucleotides within genes and show that loss of methylated CA in the brain recapitulates gene expression defects observed in MeCP2 mutants. We find that long genes encode proteins with neuronal functions, and overlap substantially with genes that have been implicated in autism and Fragile X syndrome. Reversing the overexpression of long genes in neurons lacking MeCP2 can improve some RTT-associated cellular deficits. These findings suggest that a function of MeCP2 in the mammalian brain is to temper the expression of genes in a length-dependent manner, and that mutations in MeCP2 and possibly other autism genes may cause neurological dysfunction by disrupting the expression of long genes in the brain. Bisulfite-seq from mouse cortex and cerebellum
Project description:Disruption of the MECP2 gene leads to Rett syndrome (RTT), a severe neurological disorder with features of autism. MECP2 encodes a methyl-DNA-binding protein that is proposed to function as a transcriptional repressor, but, despite numerous studies examining neuronal gene expression in MeCP2 mutants, no coherent model has emerged for how MeCP2 regulates transcription. Here we identify a genome-wide length-dependent increase in the expression of long genes in neurons lacking MeCP2. This gene misregulation occurs in human RTT brains and correlates with onset and severity of phenotypes in Mecp2 mutant mice, suggesting that the disruption of long gene expression contributes to RTT pathology. We present evidence that MeCP2 represses long genes by binding to brain-enriched, methylated CA dinucleotides within genes and show that loss of methylated CA in the brain recapitulates gene expression defects observed in MeCP2 mutants. We find that long genes encode proteins with neuronal functions, and overlap substantially with genes that have been implicated in autism and Fragile X syndrome. Reversing the overexpression of long genes in neurons lacking MeCP2 can improve some RTT-associated cellular deficits. These findings suggest that a function of MeCP2 in the mammalian brain is to temper the expression of genes in a length-dependent manner, and that mutations in MeCP2 and possibly other autism genes may cause neurological dysfunction by disrupting the expression of long genes in the brain. MeCP2 ChIP-seq from the forebrain and cerebellum of wild-type mice.