Project description:Amyloid-beta (Aβ)-induced neurotoxicity is a major contributor to the pathologies associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and early response induced by the Aβ peptide, plays a significant role in effecting cellular pathogenesis. Here we apply a particularly effective form of exogenous Aβ, i.e., amyloid beta-derived diffusible ligands (ADDLs), to cultured primary cortical/hippocampal neurons to elicit ROS and drive cellular dysfunction. To prevent and even reverse such effects, we employed a cell-penetrating, peroxisome-targeted, protein biologic - called CAT-SKL. We show the recombinant enzyme enters neurons, reverses Aβ-induced oxidative stress, and increases cell viability. Dramatic restorative effects on damaged neuronal processes were also observed. CAT-SKL, a targeted antioxidant, may represent a new therapeutic approach for treatment disorders, like Alzheimer’s disease, where oxidative stress is manifest. Preclinical testing is warranted and ongoing Primary Rat E18 coritical/hippocampal neurons (derived from Sprague Dawley E18 cortical/hippocampus tissue obtained from BrainBits®, Springfield, IL) were treated with ADDLs in the presence or absence of the targeted antioxidant CAT-SKL to investigate genes that displayed altered expression in response to treatmetns total RNA was isolated and analyzed in an Agilent two-color experiment. Two biological replicates of each condition were directly compared, ratios are treated relative to control (untreated)
Project description:Amyloid-beta (Aβ)-induced neurotoxicity is a major contributor to the pathologies associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and early response induced by the Aβ peptide, plays a significant role in effecting cellular pathogenesis. Here we apply a particularly effective form of exogenous Aβ, i.e., amyloid beta-derived diffusible ligands (ADDLs), to cultured primary cortical/hippocampal neurons to elicit ROS and drive cellular dysfunction. To prevent and even reverse such effects, we employed a cell-penetrating, peroxisome-targeted, protein biologic - called CAT-SKL. We show the recombinant enzyme enters neurons, reverses Aβ-induced oxidative stress, and increases cell viability. Dramatic restorative effects on damaged neuronal processes were also observed. CAT-SKL, a targeted antioxidant, may represent a new therapeutic approach for treatment disorders, like Alzheimer’s disease, where oxidative stress is manifest. Preclinical testing is warranted and ongoing
Project description:Complement protein C1q is induced after injury in the brain and during Alzheimer's disease and has been shown to protect against amyloid-beta induced neuronal death. In this study, we used microarray approach to identify the pathways modulated by C1q that are associated with neuroprotection. Immature rat cortical primary neurons are treated with fibrillar amyloid-beta peptides and/or C1q for 3h before RNA extraction and hybridization on rat Affymetrix microarrays. Supplementary file: Processed/normalized, probe-level signal intensities from neurons treated with amyloid-beta or C1q. Median signal intensity used as global normalization method, done with JMP genomics (v5.0) software.
Project description:Knee osteoarthritis (KOA), as a degenerative multifactorial disease, affects the quality of life and mental health of patients, and also brings a huge socioeconomic burden. Treating synovitis have shown promise as anti-inflammatory therapeutics in mitigating OA symptoms and disease progression. Here, by analysing synovial single-cell sequencing (scRNA-seq) data from KOA, we found that synovial fibroblasts (FLS) in OA synovium showed a distinct pro-inflammatory phenotype. We collected synovial tissue from patients with clinical OA as well as from healthy donors, and histological examination was consistent with findings in scRNA-seq. Inspired by recent cross-tissue fibroblast lineage studies, we identified by sequencing that healthy FLS in synovial tissues share transcriptome-level similarities with dermal fibroblasts (DFb). Subsequently, we revealed the local as well as systemic distribution of intra-articular injected DFbs by constructing/extracting two types of rat fibroblasts (luciferase DFbs as well as GFP DFbs). The results demonstrate that DFbs can be locally retained in the synovium for up to three weeks following targeted engrafting on it. And intra-articular injection does not result in DFbs migration to vital organs or the occurrence of histological changes in these organs. A rat model of KOA was constructed by anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) in order to study the therapeutic effect of DFbs on KOA. After injection, the rats showed improvement in painful gait. In addition, histological as well as imaging results showed reduced synovitis and improvement in articular cartilage. Finally we verified the protective effect of DFbs on cytokine-stimulated chondrocytes in a co-culture system.
Project description:In order to establish a rat embryonic stem cell transcriptome, mRNA from rESC cell line DAc8, the first male germline competent rat ESC line to be described and the first to be used to generate a knockout rat model was characterized using RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis.