Brain diseases such as autism and Alzheimer's disease (each inflicting >1% of the world population) involve a large network of genes displaying subtle changes in their expression. Abnormalities in intraneuronal transport have been linked to genetic risk factors found in patients, suggesting the relevance of measuring this key biological process. However, current techniques are not sensitive enough to detect minor abnormalities. Here we report a sensitive method to measure the changes in intraneuronal transport induced by brain-disease-related genetic risk factors using fluorescent nanodiamonds (FNDs). We show that the high brightness, photostability and absence of cytotoxicity allow FNDs to be tracked inside the branches of dissociated neurons with a spatial resolution of 12 nm and a temporal resolution of 50 ms. As proof of principle, we applied the FND tracking assay on two transgenic mouse lines that mimic the slight changes in protein concentration (∼30%) found in the brains of patients. In both cases, we show that the FND assay is sufficiently sensitive to detect these changes.

Carefully designed animal models of genetic risk factors are likely to aid our understanding of the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Here, we study a mouse strain with a truncating lesion in the endogenous Disc1 ortholog designed to model the effects of a schizophreniapredisposing mutation and offer a detailed account of the consequences that this mutation has on the development and function of a hippocampal circuit. We uncover widespread and cumulative cytoarchitectural alterations in the dentate gyrus during neonatal and adult neurogenesis, which include errors in axonal targeting and are accompanied by changes in short-term plasticity at the mossy fiber/CA3 circuit. We also provide evidence that cAMP levels are elevated as a result of the Disc1 mutation, leading to altered axonal targeting and dendritic growth. The identified structural alterations are, for the most part, not consistent with the growthpromoting and premature maturation effects inferred from previous RNAi-based Disc1 knockdown. Our results provide support to the notion that modest disturbances of neuronal connectivity and accompanying deficits in short-term synaptic dynamics is a general feature of schizophrenia-predisposing mutations. psychiatric disease | rare mutation | mouse model T he schizophrenia (SCHZ) susceptibility gene DISC1 was identified through a balanced chromosomal translocation (1;11)(q42.1;q14.3) segregating with SCHZ and mood disorders in a large Scottish pedigree. This is the only confirmed disease risk allele within the DISC1 locus. The biology of DISC1 is being interrogated with a variety of approaches, such as acute RNAimediated gene knockdown (1-4), overexpression of truncated forms of the human DISC1 (5, 6), and chemical mutagenesis (7). Although they provide information about potential pathways related to DISC1, these approaches are not meant to recapitulate the integrated effects of the pathogenic translocation, and the relevance of these findings to SCHZ pathogenesis remains uncertain.We used a disease-focused knockin approach to introduce a truncating lesion in the endogenous murine Disc1 ortholog designed to model the effects of the (1;11) translocation (Mouse Genome Informatics nomenclature Disc1 Tm1Kara ) (8, 9). Although the divergence in the human and mouse Disc1 gene does not allow an exact replication of the human translocation, this mouse model approximates very closely the Scottish mutation. One advantage of our approach is that it retains endogenous levels as well as spatial and temporal patterns of Disc1 expression, and it preserves short N-terminal isoforms that are presumably unaffected by the Scottish translocation and seem to be expressed at relatively higher levels in the hippocampus (HPC) of patients with SCHZ (10). A comprehensive behavioral analysis has shown that Disc1 Tm1Kara mice display a unique profile of cognitive impairments, including specific and robust deficiencies in working memory (WM) tests (8, 9), which may relate to similar cognitive deficits prominent in psychotic disorders.DISC1 is...

The molecular mechanisms that lead to the cognitive defects characteristic of Down syndrome (DS), the most frequent cause of mental retardation, have remained elusive. Here we use a transgenic DS mouse model (152F7 line) to show that DYRK1A gene dosage imbalance deregulates chromosomal clusters of genes located near neuron-restrictive silencer factor (REST/NRSF) binding sites. We found that Dyrk1a binds the SWI/SNF complex known to interact with REST/NRSF. The mutation of a REST/NRSF binding site in the promoter of the REST/NRSF target gene L1cam modifies the transcriptional effect of Dyrk1a-dosage imbalance on L1cam. Dyrk1a dosage imbalance perturbs Rest/Nrsf levels with decreased Rest/Nrsf expression in embryonic neurons and increased expression in adult neurons. Using transcriptome analysis of embryonic brain subregions of transgenic 152F7 mouse line, we identified a coordinated deregulation of multiple genes that are responsible for dendritic growth impairment present in DS. Similarly, Dyrk1a overexpression in primary mouse cortical neurons induced severe reduction of the dendritic growth and dendritic complexity. We propose that DYRK1A overexpression-related neuronal gene deregulation via disturbance of REST/NRSF levels, and the REST/NRSF-SWI/SNF chromatin remodelling complex, significantly contributes to the neural phenotypic changes that characterize DS.