Dataset Information

In vivo cell-autonomous transcriptional abnormalities revealed in mice expressing mutant huntingtin in striatal but not cortical neurons

ABSTRACT: Huntington’s disease (HD), caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin (HTT) gene, is characterized by abnormal protein aggregates and motor and cognitive dysfunction. Htt protein is ubiquitously expressed, but the striatal medium spiny neuron (MSN) is most susceptible to neuronal dysfunction and death. Abnormal gene expression represents a core pathogenic feature of HD, but the relative roles of cell-autonomous and non-cell-autonomous effects on transcription remain unclear. To determine the extent of cell-autonomous dysregulation in the striatum in vivo, we examined genome-wide RNA expression in symptomatic D9-N171-98Q (a.k.a. DE5) transgenic mice in which the forebrain expression of the first 171 amino acids of human Htt with a 98Q repeat expansion is limited to MSNs. Microarray data generated from these mice were compared to those generated on the identical array platform from a pan-neuronal HD mouse model, R6/2, carrying two different CAG repeat lengths, and a relatively high degree of overlap of changes in gene expression was revealed. We further focused on known canonical pathways associated with excitotoxicity, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, dopamine signaling and trophic support, among others. While genes related to excitotoxicity, dopamine signaling and trophic support, were altered in both DE5 and R6/2 transgenic mice, which may be either cell-autonomous or non-cell-autonomous,, genes related to mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress and the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor are primarily affected in DE5 transgenic mice, indicating cell autonomous mechanisms Overall, our results demonstrate that HD-induced dysregulation of the striatal transcriptome can be largely attributed to intrinsic effects of mutant Htt,,such that mutant Htt-induced effects in cortical neurons is not necessary for striatal dysfunction/degeneration.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE25232 | GEO | 2011/01/01

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA134475

REPOSITORIES: GEO

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:In Huntington’s disease (HD), expanded HTT CAG repeat length correlates strongly with age at motor onset, indicating that it determines the rate of the disease process leading to diagnostic clinical manifestations. Similarly, in normal individuals, HTT CAG repeat length is correlated with biochemical differences that reveal it as a functional polymorphism. Here, we tested the hypothesis that gene expression signatures can capture continuous, length-dependent effects of the HTT CAG repeat. Using gene expression datasets for 107 HD and control lymphoblastoid cell lines, we constructed mathematical models in an iterative manner, based upon CAG correlated gene expression patterns in randomly chosen training samples, and tested their predictive power in test samples. Predicted CAG repeat lengths were significantly correlated with experimentally determined CAG repeat lengths, whereas models based upon randomly permuted CAGs were not at all predictive. Predictions from different batches of mRNA for the same cell lines were significantly correlated, implying that CAG length-correlated gene expression is reproducible. Notably, HTT expression was not itself correlated with HTT CAG repeat length. Taken together, these findings confirm the concept of a gene expression signature representing the continuous effect of HTT CAG length and not primarily dependent on the level of huntingtin expression. Such global and unbiased approaches, applied to additional cell types and tissues, may facilitate the discovery of therapies for HD by providing a comprehensive view of molecular changes triggered by HTT CAG repeat length for use in screening for and testing compounds that reverse effects of the HTT CAG expansion. To evaluate the continuous analytical approach as a strategy to discover the molecular consequences of the HTT CAG repeat, genome-wide gene expression datasets were generated from a panel of 107 human lymphoblastoid cell lines with HTT CAGs spanning the entire spectrum of allele sizes.

Dataset Information

In vivo cell-autonomous transcriptional abnormalities revealed in mice expressing mutant huntingtin in striatal but not cortical neurons

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure