NMNAT2 Is Downregulated in Glaucomatous RGCs and RGC-Specific Gene Therapy with NMNAT2 Overexpression Rescues Glaucomatous Neurodegeneration and Visual Function
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ABSTRACT:
PROVIDER: PRJNA756372 | ENA |
REPOSITORIES: ENA
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Project description:The lack of neuroprotective treatments for retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and optic nerve (ON) is a central challenge for glaucoma management. Emerging evidence suggests that redox factor NAD+ decline is a hallmark of aging and neurodegenerative diseases including glaucoma. Supplementation with NAD+ precursors and overexpression of the nicotinamide mononucleotide adenylyltransferase (NMNAT), the key enzyme involved in the NAD+ biosynthetic process, have significant neuroprotection effect on glaucoma. Among the three NMNAT isoforms, only NMNAT2 is enriched in neurons, especially in axons, however, its role in glaucoma is not well studied. Here we present the expression levels of the enzymes that involved in NAD+ metabolism in both naïve and glaucomatous mouse RGCs. Intriguingly, NMNAT2 is the dominant form of NMNATs in RGCs and only its mRNA level, but not NMNAT1 or NMNAT3, is significant decreased in glaucomatous RGCs. We then demonstrated proof-of-principal gene therapy strategy of restoring RGC-specific NMNAT2 and NAD+ levels by AAV2-mediated RGC-specific promoter mSncg-driven long half-life NMNAT2 mutant. This gene therapy strategy is further tested in two optic neuropathy models, traumatic ON crush model and ocular hypertension glaucoma model. RGC-specific NMNAT2 overexpression significantly promotes RGC somata and axons survival and preserves visual function in both models. Our studies suggest that the weaking of NMNAT2 expression in glaucomatous RGCs contributes to detrimental NAD+ decline and that modulating RGC intrinsic NMNAT2 level by AAV2-mSncg vector is a potent gene therapy for glaucomatous neuroprotection.
2021-08-22 | GSE182483 | GEO
Project description:Goals of the study: 1. Assess the gene expression profile in rat RGC after experimental IOP elevation to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of RGC death. 2. Identify potentially novel genes and pathways that may contribute to RGC death in glaucoma. Background: Glaucoma is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the slow, progressive degeneration of RGC. Elevated IOP is the biggest risk factor for developing glaucoma, loss of RGC and optic nerve atrophy. The pathophysiology of glaucomatous neurodegeneration is not fully understood. It is now clear that RGC die by apoptosis in glaucoma. However, what triggers the apoptosis is still unknown. So far, several gene expression studies have been performed on the retina as a whole. These studies revealed up and downregulation of many genes in response to elevated IOP and optic nerve transection. However, the retina is a complex tissue composed of neuronal, glial and vascular cell types. The RGCs only comprise 5% or less of retinal cells. The gene expression profiles from whole retina can not represent of RGC gene expression. In the current study, we sought to investigate the whole genome regulation of the RGCs in glaucoma. The study was carried out in 3 adult male Brown Norway rats with experimental glaucoma. An equal number of RGCs were captured from normal eyes and eyes with elevated IOP. Gene expression in the glaucomatous RGC was compared with that in the fellow RGC by using Affymetrix Gene chip.
2010-10-01 | E-GEOD-12596 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Through a comparative analysis of RGC subclasses exhibiting varying levels of resilience to cell death, based on cell-cell interaction analysis, we identified the Mu-opioid receptor, encoded by the Oprm1 gene, as a novel neuroprotective factor for pan-RGCs. Functionally and with the sequencing dataset deposited here, we validated Oprm1 as a neuroprotective factor for RGCs, by demonstrating that overexpression of Oprm1 in RGCs not only led to a markedly increased survival rate of RGCs following several different types of retinal injuries, but also significantly improved visually-guided perception behaviors.
2023-12-26 | GSE248537 | GEO
Project description:The failure of adult CNS neurons to survive and regenerate their axons after injury or in neurodegenerative disease remains a major target for basic and clinical neuroscience. Recent data demonstrated in the adult mouse that exogenous expression of Sry-related high-mobility-box 11 (Sox11) promotes optic nerve regeneration after optic nerve injury, but exacerbates the death of a subset of retinal ganglion cells, alpha-RGCs. During development, Sox11 is required for RGC differentiation from retinal progenitor cells (RPCs), and we found that mutation of a single residue to prevent sumoylation at K91 increased nuclear localization and RGC differentiation in vitro. Here we explored whether this Sox11 manipulation similarly has stronger effects on RGC survival and optic nerve regeneration. In vitro, we found that non-SUMOylatable Sox11 K91A leads to RGC death and suppresses axon outgrowth in primary neurons. We furthermore found that Sox11 K91A more strongly promotes axon regeneration but also increases RGC death after optic nerve injury in vivo in adult mouse. RNA-seq data showed that Sox11 and Sox11 K91A increase the expression of key signaling pathway genes associated with axon growth and regeneration but downregulated Spp1 and Opn4 expression in RGC cultures, consistent with negatively regulating the survival of α-RGCs and ipRGCs. Thus Sox11 and its sumoylation site at K91 regulate gene expression, survival and axon growth in RGCs and may be explored further as potential regenerative therapies for optic neuropathy.
2021-01-15 | GSE160627 | GEO
Project description:Numerous micro-RNAs (miRNAs) affect neurodevelopment and neuroprotection, but potential roles of many miRNAs in regulating these processes are still unknown. Here, we used the retinal ganglion cell (RGC) central nervous system (CNS) projection neuron and optic nerve crush (ONC) injury model, to optimize a mature miRNA arm-specific quantification method for characterizing the developmental regulation of miR-1247-5p in RGCs, investigated whether injury affects its expression, and tested whether upregulating miR-1247-5p-mimic in RGCs promotes neuroprotection and axon regeneration. We found that, miR-1247-5p is developmentally-downregulated in RGCs, and is also further downregulated after ONC. Importantly, RGC-specific upregulation of miR-1247-5p promoted neuroprotection and axon regeneration after injury in vivo. To gain insight into the underlying mechanisms, we analyzed by bulk-mRNA-seq embryonic and adult RGCs, along with adult RGCs transduced by miR-1247-5p-expressing viral vector, and identified developmentally-regulated cilial and mitochondrial biological processes, which were reinstated to their embryonic levels in adult RGCs by upregulation of miR-1247-5p. Because axon growth is also a developmentally-regulated process, in which mitochondrial dynamics play important roles, it is possible that miR-1247-5p promoted neuroprotection and axon regeneration through regulating mitochondrial functions.
2024-01-26 | GSE252514 | GEO
Project description:Analysis of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) by scRNA-seq is emerging as a state-of-the-art method for studying RGC biology and subtypes, as well as for studying the mechanisms of neuroprotection and axon regeneration in the central nervous system (CNS). Rbpms has been established as a pan-RGC marker, and Spp1 has been established as an αRGC type and macrophage marker. Here, we analyzed by scRNA-seq retinal microglia and macrophages, and found Rbpms+ subpopulations of retinal microglia/macrophages, which pose a potential pitfall in scRNA-seq studies involving RGCs. We performed comparative analysis of cellular identity of the presumed RGC cells isolated in recent scRNA-seq studies, and found that Rbpms+ microglia/macrophages confounded identification of RGCs. We also showed using immunohistological analysis that, Rbpms protein localizes to stress granules in a subpopulation of retinal microglia after optic nerve injury, which was further supported by bioinformatics analysis identifying stress granule-associated genes enriched in the Rbpms+ microglia/macrophages. Our findings suggest that the identification of Rbpms+ RGCs by immunostaining after optic nerve injury should exclude cells in which Rbpms signal is restricted to a subcellular granule, and include only those cells in which the Rbpms signal is labeling cell soma diffusely. Finally, we provide solutions for circumventing this potential pitfall of Rbpm-expressing microglia/macrophages in scRNA-seq studies, by including in RGC and αRGC selection criteria other pan-RGC and αRGC markers.
2023-05-23 | GSE228986 | GEO
Project description:Numerous micro-RNAs (miRNAs) affect neurodevelopment and neuroprotection, but potential roles of many miRNAs in regulating these processes are still unknown. Here, we used the retinal ganglion cell (RGC) central nervous system (CNS) projection neuron and optic nerve crush (ONC) injury model, to optimize a mature miRNA arm-specific quantification method for characterizing the developmental regulation of miR-1247-5p in RGCs, investigated whether injury affects its expression, and tested whether upregulating miR-1247-5p-mimic in RGCs promotes neuroprotection and axon regeneration. We found that, miR-1247-5p is developmentally-downregulated in RGCs, and is also further downregulated after ONC. Importantly, RGC-specific upregulation of miR-1247-5p promoted neuroprotection and axon regeneration after injury in vivo. To gain insight into the underlying mechanisms, we analyzed by bulk-mRNA-seq embryonic and adult RGCs, along with adult RGCs transduced by miR-1247-5p-expressing viral vector, and identified developmentally-regulated cilial and mitochondrial biological processes, which were reinstated to their embryonic levels in adult RGCs by upregulation of miR-1247-5p. Because axon growth is also a developmentally-regulated process, in which mitochondrial dynamics play important roles, it is possible that miR-1247-5p promoted neuroprotection and axon regeneration through regulating mitochondrial functions.
2024-01-26 | GSE252516 | GEO
Project description:Since retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) do not regenerate after injury, RGC replacement therapy could provide an approach to vision restoration in glaucoma and other optic neuropathies. Here we developed a rapid protocol for direct induction of RGC (iRGC) differentiation from human iPSCs and ESCs in less than two weeks, by overexpression of NGN2 in RGC survival-promoting medium supplemented with a Notch inhibitor. Neuronal morphology and neurite growth were observed within one week of induction. Immunostaining and qRT-PCR for characteristic RGC-specific genes confirmed identity. Calcium imaging was used to evaluate iRGCs’ electrophysiologic maturation, and demonstrated GABA-induced excitatory calcium influx characteristic of immature RGCs. Using single cell-RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) we further delineated iRGCs’ differentiation and compared iRGC transcriptomic profiles to fetal human and retinal organoid-derived RGCs. Unbiased clustering showed high similarities of transcriptomic profiles among iRGCs, early-stage fetal human RGCs and early-stage retinal organoid-derived RGCs. However, for some markers, including BRN3a, BRN3b and NEFL, iRGCs demonstrated expression patterns more similar to fetal RGCs than to retinal organoid RGCs. After intravitreal injection into rodent eyes, transplanted iRGCs survived and migrated into host retinas where they were detected one week and one month after transplant. Prior optic nerve trauma to the recipient host did not significantly enhance or detract from iRGC integration, but iRGCs protected host RGCs from neurodegeneration. Taken together, these data demonstrate rapid iRGC generation in vitro into an immature cell with high similarity to human fetal RGCs and capacity for retinal integration after transplant, including after optic nerve injury. The simplicity of this system may benefit translational studies on human RGCs.
2022-04-10 | GSE200452 | GEO
Project description:Chrdl1 treatment promotes formation of synapses and GluA2-AMPAR recruitment in Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) cultures. Analysis of the transcriptome of RGCs with or without Chrdl1 treatment let us determine potential alterations in the expression of genes related to BMP signaling, or genes involved in excitatory synaptogenesis and AMPAR trafficking.
2018-10-29 | GSE108484 | GEO
Project description:Astrocyte-secreted proteins induce synapse formation between isolated retinal ganglion cell (RGC) neurons in culture. We asked whether 2 of these proteins, glypican 4 (Gpc4) or thrombospondin 1 (TSP1) induce synapse formation by regulating gene expression in RGCs.
2017-10-15 | GSE86595 | GEO