scholarly journals Cell-type specific impact of glucocorticoid receptor activation on the developing brain

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiana Cruceanu ◽  
Leander Dony ◽  
Anthi C. Krontira ◽  
David S. Fischer ◽  
Simone Roeh ◽  
...  

AbstractA fine-tuned balance of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) activation is essential for organ formation, with disturbances influencing health outcomes. Excess GR-activation in utero has been linked to brain-related negative outcomes, with unclear underlying mechanisms, especially regarding cell-type specific effects. To address this, we used an in vitro model of fetal human brain, induced pluripotent-stem-cell-derived cerebral organoids, and mapped GR-activation effects using single-cell transcriptomics across development. Interestingly, neurons showed targeted regulation of differentiation- and maturation-related transcripts, suggesting a delay of these processes upon GR-activation. Uniquely in neurons, differentially-expressed transcripts were significantly enriched for genes associated with behavior-related phenotypes and disorders. This suggests that aberrant GR-activation could impact proper neuronal maturation, leading to increased disease susceptibility, through neurodevelopmental processes at the interface of genetic susceptibility and environmental exposure.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhengyu Ouyang ◽  
Nathanael Bourgeois ◽  
Eugenia Lyashenko ◽  
Paige Cundiff ◽  
Patrick F Cullen ◽  
...  

Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived cell types are increasingly employed as in vitro model systems for drug discovery. For these studies to be meaningful, it is important to understand the reproducibility of the iPSC-derived cultures and their similarity to equivalent endogenous cell types. Single-cell and single-nucleus RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) are useful to gain such understanding, but they are expensive and time consuming, while bulk RNA-seq data can be generated quicker and at lower cost. In silico cell type decomposition is an efficient, inexpensive, and convenient alternative that can leverage bulk RNA-seq to derive more fine-grained information about these cultures. We developed CellMap, a computational tool that derives cell type profiles from publicly available single-cell and single-nucleus datasets to infer cell types in bulk RNA-seq data from iPSC-derived cell lines.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Gregory ◽  
Emily Hoelzli ◽  
Rawan Abdelaal ◽  
Catherine Braine ◽  
Miguel Cuevas ◽  
...  

AbstractGenetic and genomic studies of brain disease increasingly demonstrate disease-associated interactions between the cell types of the brain. Increasingly complex and more physiologically relevant human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-based models better explore the molecular mechanisms underlying disease, but also challenge our ability to resolve cell-type specific perturbations. Here we report an extension of the RiboTag system, first developed to achieve cell-type restricted expression of epitope-tagged ribosomal protein (RPL22) in mouse tissue, to a variety of in vitro applications, including immortalized cell lines, primary mouse astrocytes, and hiPSC-derived neurons. RiboTag expression enables efficient depletion of off-target RNA in mixed species primary co-cultures and in hiPSC-derived neural progenitor cells, motor neurons, and GABAergic neurons. Nonetheless, depletion efficiency varies across independent experimental replicates. The challenges and potential of implementing RiboTags in complex in vitro cultures are discussed.


Cells ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1406
Author(s):  
James A. Gregory ◽  
Emily Hoelzli ◽  
Rawan Abdelaal ◽  
Catherine Braine ◽  
Miguel Cuevas ◽  
...  

Genetic and genomic studies of brain disease increasingly demonstrate disease-associated interactions between the cell types of the brain. Increasingly complex and more physiologically relevant human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-based models better explore the molecular mechanisms underlying disease but also challenge our ability to resolve cell type-specific perturbations. Here, we report an extension of the RiboTag system, first developed to achieve cell type-restricted expression of epitope-tagged ribosomal protein (RPL22) in mouse tissue, to a variety of in vitro applications, including immortalized cell lines, primary mouse astrocytes, and hiPSC-derived neurons. RiboTag expression enables depletion of up to 87 percent of off-target RNA in mixed species co-cultures. Nonetheless, depletion efficiency varies across independent experimental replicates, particularly for hiPSC-derived motor neurons. The challenges and potential of implementing RiboTags in complex in vitro cultures are discussed.


Brain ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (2) ◽  
pp. 430-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Smethurst ◽  
Emmanuel Risse ◽  
Giulia E Tyzack ◽  
Jamie S Mitchell ◽  
Doaa M Taha ◽  
...  

Abstract Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal and incurable neurodegenerative disease caused by motor neuron loss, resulting in muscle wasting, paralysis and eventual death. A key pathological feature of ALS is cytoplasmically mislocalized and aggregated TDP-43 protein in >95% of cases, which is considered to have prion-like properties. Historical studies have predominantly focused on genetic forms of ALS, which represent ∼10% of cases, leaving the remaining 90% of sporadic ALS relatively understudied. Additionally, the role of astrocytes in ALS and their relationship with TDP-43 pathology is also not currently well understood. We have therefore used highly enriched human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived motor neurons and astrocytes to model early cell type-specific features of sporadic ALS. We first demonstrate seeded aggregation of TDP-43 by exposing human iPSC-derived motor neurons to serially passaged sporadic ALS post-mortem tissue (spALS) extracts. Next, we show that human iPSC-derived motor neurons are more vulnerable to TDP-43 aggregation and toxicity compared with their astrocyte counterparts. We demonstrate that these TDP-43 aggregates can more readily propagate from motor neurons into astrocytes in co-culture paradigms. We next found that astrocytes are neuroprotective to seeded aggregation within motor neurons by reducing (mislocalized) cytoplasmic TDP-43, TDP-43 aggregation and cell toxicity. Furthermore, we detected TDP-43 oligomers in these spALS spinal cord extracts, and as such demonstrated that highly purified recombinant TDP-43 oligomers can reproduce this observed cell-type specific toxicity, providing further support to a protein oligomer-mediated toxicity hypothesis in ALS. In summary, we have developed a human, clinically relevant, and cell-type specific modelling platform that recapitulates key aspects of sporadic ALS and uncovers both an initial neuroprotective role for astrocytes and the cell type-specific toxic effect of TDP-43 oligomers.


1999 ◽  
Vol 112 (10) ◽  
pp. 1591-1597 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Dittmer ◽  
E.J. Ulbrich ◽  
A. Hafner ◽  
W. Schmahl ◽  
T. Meister ◽  
...  

Viable mice nullizygous in genes encoding the 300 kDa and the 46 kDa mannose 6-phosphate receptors (MPR 300 and MPR 46) and the insulin like growth factor II (IGF II) were generated to study the trafficking of lysosomal enzymes in the absence of MPRs. The mice have an I-cell disease-like phenotype, with increase of lysosomal enzymes in serum and normal activities in tissues. Surprisingly, the ability of MPR-deficient cells to transport newly synthesized lysosomal enzymes to lysosomes and the underlying mechanisms were found to depend on the cell type. MPR-deficient thymocytes target newly synthesized cathepsin D to lysosomes via an intracellular route. In contrast, hepatocytes and fibroblasts secrete newly synthesized cathepsin D. In fibroblasts recapture of secreted lysosomal enzymes, including that of cathepsin D, is limited and results in lysosomal storage, both in vivo and in vitro, whereas recapture by hepatocytes is remarkably effective in vivo and can result in lysosomal enzyme levels even above normal.


Author(s):  
Drew Neavin ◽  
Quan Nguyen ◽  
Maciej S. Daniszewski ◽  
Helena H. Liang ◽  
Han Sheng Chiu ◽  
...  

AbstractThe discovery that somatic cells can be reprogrammed to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) - cells that can be differentiated into any cell type of the three germ layers - has provided a foundation for in vitro human disease modelling1,2, drug development1,2, and population genetics studies3,4. In the majority of instances, the expression levels of genes, plays a critical role in contributing to disease risk, or the ability to identify therapeutic targets. However, while the effect of the genetic background of cell lines has been shown to strongly influence gene expression, the effect has not been evaluated at the level of individual cells. Differences in the effect of genetic variation on the gene expression of different cell-types, would provide significant resolution for in vitro research using preprogramed cells. By bringing together single cell RNA sequencing15–21 and population genetics, we now have a framework in which to evaluate the cell-types specific effects of genetic variation on gene expression. Here, we performed single cell RNA-sequencing on 64,018 fibroblasts from 79 donors and we mapped expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) at the level of individual cell types. We demonstrate that the large majority of eQTL detected in fibroblasts are specific to an individual sub-type of cells. To address if the allelic effects on gene expression are dynamic across cell reprogramming, we generated scRNA-seq data in 19,967 iPSCs from 31 reprogramed donor lines. We again identify highly cell type specific eQTL in iPSCs, and show that that the eQTL in fibroblasts are almost entirely disappear during reprogramming. This work provides an atlas of how genetic variation influences gene expression across cell subtypes, and provided evidence for patterns of genetic architecture that lead to cell-types specific eQTL effects.


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