An expanded hexanucleotide repeat in C9orf72 causes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia (c9FTD/ALS). Therapeutics are being developed to target RNAs containing the expanded repeat sequence (GGGGCC); however, this approach is complicated by the presence of antisense strand transcription of expanded GGCCCC repeats. We found that targeting the transcription elongation factor, Spt4, selectively decreased production of both sense and antisense expanded transcripts, as well as their translated dipeptide repeat (DPR) products, and also mitigated degeneration in animal models. Knockdown of SUPT4H1, the human Spt4 ortholog, similarly decreased production of sense and antisense RNA foci as well as DPR proteins in patient cells. Therapeutic targeting of a single factor to eliminate c9FTD/ALS pathological features offers advantages over approaches that require targeting sense and antisense repeats separately.
Distal hereditary motor neuropathy is a heterogeneous group of inherited neuropathies characterized by distal limb muscle weakness and atrophy. Although at least 15 genes have been implicated in distal hereditary motor neuropathy, the genetic causes remain elusive in many families. To identify an additional causal gene for distal hereditary motor neuropathy, we performed exome sequencing for two affected individuals and two unaffected members in a Taiwanese family with an autosomal dominant distal hereditary motor neuropathy in which mutations in common distal hereditary motor neuropathy-implicated genes had been excluded. The exome sequencing revealed a heterozygous mutation, c.770A > G (p.His257Arg), in the cytoplasmic tryptophanyl-tRNA synthetase (TrpRS) gene (WARS) that co-segregates with the neuropathy in the family. Further analyses of WARS in an additional 79 Taiwanese pedigrees with inherited neuropathies and 163 index cases from Australian, European, and Korean distal hereditary motor neuropathy families identified the same mutation in another Taiwanese distal hereditary motor neuropathy pedigree with different ancestries and one additional Belgian distal hereditary motor neuropathy family of Caucasian origin. Cell transfection studies demonstrated a dominant-negative effect of the p.His257Arg mutation on aminoacylation activity of TrpRS, which subsequently compromised protein synthesis and reduced cell viability. His257Arg TrpRS also inhibited neurite outgrowth and led to neurite degeneration in the neuronal cell lines and rat motor neurons. Further in vitro analyses showed that the WARS mutation could potentiate the angiostatic activities of TrpRS by enhancing its interaction with vascular endothelial-cadherin. Taken together, these findings establish WARS as a gene whose mutations may cause distal hereditary motor neuropathy and alter canonical and non-canonical functions of TrpRS.
We investigated the therapeutic potential of human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs) in Huntington's disease (HD) mouse models. Ten weeks after intrastriatal injection of quinolinic acid (QA), mice that received hBM-MSC transplantation showed a significant reduction in motor function impairment and increased survival rate. Transplanted hBM-MSCs were capable of survival, and inducing neural proliferation and differentiation in the QA-lesioned striatum. In addition, the transplanted hBM-MSCs induced microglia, neuroblasts and bone marrow-derived cells to migrate into the QA-lesioned region. Similar results were obtained in R6/2-J2, a genetically-modified animal model of HD, except for the improvement of motor function. After hBM-MSC transplantation, the transplanted hBM-MSCs may integrate with the host cells and increase the levels of laminin, Von Willebrand Factor (VWF), stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1), and the SDF-1 receptor Cxcr4. The p-Erk1/2 expression was increased while Bax and caspase-3 levels were decreased after hBM-MSC transplantation suggesting that the reduced level of apoptosis after hBM-MSC transplantation was of benefit to the QA-lesioned mice. Our data suggest that hBM-MSCs have neural differentiation improvement potential, neurotrophic support capability and an anti-apoptotic effect, and may be a feasible candidate for HD therapy.
In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, genes placed near telomeres or the silent HML and HMR mating-type loci are transcriptionally repressed by a heterochromatin-like structure. We have generated nonreplicating DNA rings by recombination in vivo to examine the role of chromosomal context on transcriptional repression. Specifically, recombination at HMR was used to produce rings that lacked the E and I silencers. An altered level of DNA supercoiling was observed in these rings but not in comparable rings from derepressed loci. Our results indicate that a repressive chromatin structure persists in an extrachromosomal environment immediately following removal of the cis-acting control elements. Examination of both chromatin footprints and DNA sequence dependence revealed that changes in nucleosome number could account for the topology shifts. Upon continued cell growth, the differences in supercoiling were lost and transcriptional competence was restored. These results show that silencers are required for sustained persistence of repressive chromatin structure, even in the absence of DNA replication.
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