Gut-Brain Nexus: Mapping Multi-Modal Links to Neurodegeneration at Biobank Scale.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Using data from UK Biobank, SAIL Biobank, and FinnGen, we conducted an unbiased, population-scale study to: 1) Investigate how 155 endocrine, nutritional, metabolic, and digestive system disorders are associated with AD and PD risk prior to their diagnosis, considering known genetic influences; 2) Assess plasma biomarkers' specificity for AD or PD in individuals with these conditions; 3) Develop a multi-modal classification model integrating genetics, proteomics, and clinical data relevant to conditions affecting the gut-brain axis. Our findings show that certain disorders elevate AD and PD risk before AD and PD diagnosis including: insulin and non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, noninfective gastro-enteritis and colitis, functional intestinal disorders, and bacterial intestinal infections, among others. Polygenic risk scores revealed lower genetic predisposition to AD and PD in individuals with co-occurring disorders in the study categories, underscoring the importance of regulating the gut-brain axis to potentially prevent or delay the onset of neurodegenerative diseases. The proteomic profile of AD/PD cases was influenced by comorbid endocrine, nutritional, metabolic, and digestive systems conditions. Importantly, we developed multi-modal prediction models integrating clinical, genetic, proteomic and demographic data, the combination of which performs better than any single paradigm approach in disease classification. This work aims to illuminate the intricate interplay between various physiological factors involved in the gut-brain axis and the development of AD and PD, providing a multifactorial systemic understanding that goes beyond traditional approaches.

Altered mRNA transport and local translation in iNeurons with RNA binding protein knockdown.

Neurons rely on mRNA transport and local translation to facilitate rapid protein synthesis in processes far from the cell body. These processes allow precise spatial and temporal control of translation and are mediated by RNA binding proteins (RBPs), including those known to be associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we use proteomics, transcriptomics, and microscopy to investigate the impact of RBP knockdown on mRNA transport and local translation in iPSC-derived neurons. We find thousands of transcripts enriched in neurites and that many of these transcripts are locally translated, possibly due to the shorter length of transcripts in neurites. Loss of frontotemporal dementia/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (FTD/ALS)-associated RBPs TDP-43 and hnRNPA1 lead to distinct alterations in the neuritic proteome and transcriptome. TDP-43 knockdown (KD) leads to increased neuritic mRNA and translation. In contrast, hnRNPA1 leads to increased neuritic mRNA, but not translation, and more moderate effects on local mRNA profiles, possibly due to compensation by hnRNPA3. These results highlight the crucial role of FTD/ALS-associated RBPs in mRNA transport and local translation in neurons and the importance of these processes in neuron health and disease.

TDP-43 loss induces extensive cryptic polyadenylation in ALS/FTD.

Nuclear depletion and cytoplasmic aggregation of the RNA-binding protein TDP-43 is the hallmark of ALS, occurring in over 97% of cases. A key consequence of TDP-43 nuclear loss is the de-repression of cryptic exons. Whilst TDP-43 regulated cryptic splicing is increasingly well catalogued, cryptic alternative polyadenylation (APA) events, which define the 3' end of last exons, have been largely overlooked, especially when not associated with novel upstream splice junctions. We developed a novel bioinformatic approach to reliably identify distinct APA event types: alternative last exons (ALE), 3'UTR extensions (3'Ext) and intronic polyadenylation (IPA) events. We identified novel neuronal cryptic APA sites induced by TDP-43 loss of function by systematically applying our pipeline to a compendium of publicly available and in house datasets. We find that TDP-43 binding sites and target motifs are enriched at these cryptic events and that TDP-43 can have both repressive and enhancing action on APA. Importantly, all categories of cryptic APA can also be identified in ALS and FTD post mortem brain regions with TDP-43 proteinopathy underlining their potential disease relevance. RNA-seq and Ribo-seq analyses indicate that distinct cryptic APA categories have different downstream effects on transcript and translation. Intriguingly, cryptic 3'Exts occur in multiple transcription factors, such as ELK1, SIX3, and TLX1, and lead to an increase in wild-type protein levels and function. Finally, we show that an increase in RNA stability leading to a higher cytoplasmic localisation underlies these observations. In summary, we demonstrate that TDP-43 nuclear depletion induces a novel category of cryptic RNA processing events and we expand the palette of TDP-43 loss consequences by showing this can also lead to an increase in normal protein translation.

TMEM106B core deposition associates with TDP-43 pathology and is increased in risk SNP carriers for frontotemporal dementia.

Genetic variation at the transmembrane protein 106B gene (TMEM106B) has been linked to risk of frontotemporal lobar degeneration with TDP-43 inclusions (FTLD-TDP) through an unknown mechanism. We found that presence of the TMEM106B rs3173615 protective genotype was associated with longer survival after symptom onset in a postmortem FTLD-TDP cohort, suggesting a slower disease course. The seminal discovery that filaments derived from TMEM106B is a common feature in aging and, across a range of neurodegenerative disorders, suggests that genetic variants in TMEM106B could modulate disease risk and progression through modulating TMEM106B aggregation. To explore this possibility and assess the pathological relevance of TMEM106B accumulation, we generated a new antibody targeting the TMEM106B filament core sequence. Analysis of postmortem samples revealed that the TMEM106B rs3173615 risk allele was associated with higher TMEM106B core accumulation in patients with FTLD-TDP. In contrast, minimal TMEM106B core deposition was detected in carriers of the protective allele. Although the abundance of monomeric full-length TMEM106B was unchanged, carriers of the protective genotype exhibited an increase in dimeric full-length TMEM106B. Increased TMEM106B core deposition was also associated with enhanced TDP-43 dysfunction, and interactome data suggested a role for TMEM106B core filaments in impaired RNA transport, local translation, and endolysosomal function in FTLD-TDP. Overall, these findings suggest that prevention of TMEM106B core accumulation is central to the mechanism by which the TMEM106B protective haplotype reduces disease risk and slows progression.

Mis-spliced transcripts generate de novo proteins in TDP-43-related ALS/FTD.

Functional loss of TDP-43, an RNA binding protein genetically and pathologically linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), leads to the inclusion of cryptic exons in hundreds of transcripts during disease. Cryptic exons can promote the degradation of affected transcripts, deleteriously altering cellular function through loss-of-function mechanisms. Here, we show that mRNA transcripts harboring cryptic exons generated de novo proteins in TDP-43-depleted human iPSC-derived neurons in vitro, and de novo peptides were found in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients with ALS or FTD. Using coordinated transcriptomic and proteomic studies of TDP-43-depleted human iPSC-derived neurons, we identified 65 peptides that mapped to 12 cryptic exons. Cryptic exons identified in TDP-43-depleted human iPSC-derived neurons were predictive of cryptic exons expressed in postmortem brain tissue from patients with TDP-43 proteinopathy. These cryptic exons produced transcript variants that generated de novo proteins. We found that the inclusion of cryptic peptide sequences in proteins altered their interactions with other proteins, thereby likely altering their function. Last, we showed that 18 de novo peptides across 13 genes were present in CSF samples from patients with ALS/FTD spectrum disorders. The demonstration of cryptic exon translation suggests new mechanisms for ALS/FTD pathophysiology downstream of TDP-43 dysfunction and may provide a potential strategy to assay TDP-43 function in patient CSF.

Meeting Report on the 3rd Chinese American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference-Advancing Biological and Pharmaceutical Mass Spectrometry.

Following the highly successful Chinese American Society for Mass Spectrometry (CASMS) conferences in the previous 2 years, the 3rd CASMS Conference was held virtually on August 28-31, 2023, using the Gather.Town platform to bring together scientists in the MS field. The conference offered a 4-day agenda with a scientific program consisting of two plenary lectures, and 14 parallel symposia in which a total of 70 speakers presented technological innovations and their applications in proteomics and biological MS and metabo-lipidomics and pharmaceutical MS. In addition, 16 invited speakers/panelists presented at two research-focused and three career development workshops. Moreover, 86 posters, 12 lightning talks, 3 sponsored workshops, and 11 exhibitions were presented, from which 9 poster awards and 2 lightning talk awards were selected. Furthermore, the conference featured four young investigator awardees to highlight early-career achievements in MS from our society. The conference provided a unique scientific platform for young scientists (i.e. graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty/investigators) to present their research, meet with prominent scientists, learn about career development, and job opportunities (http://casms.org).

A fully automated FAIMS-DIA mass spectrometry-based proteomic pipeline.

Here, we present a standardized, "off-the-shelf" proteomics pipeline working in a single 96-well plate to achieve deep coverage of cellular proteomes with high throughput and scalability. This integrated pipeline streamlines a fully automated sample preparation platform, a data-independent acquisition (DIA) coupled with high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometer (FAIMS) interface, and an optimized library-free DIA database search strategy. Our systematic evaluation of FAIMS-DIA showing single compensation voltage (CV) at -35 V not only yields the deepest proteome coverage but also best correlates with DIA without FAIMS. Our in-depth comparison of direct-DIA database search engines shows that Spectronaut outperforms others, providing the highest quantifiable proteins. Next, we apply three common DIA strategies in characterizing human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neurons and show single-shot mass spectrometry (MS) using single-CV (-35 V)-FAIMS-DIA results in >9,000 quantifiable proteins with <10% missing values, as well as superior reproducibility and accuracy compared with other existing DIA methods.

Identification of neoepitope reactive T-cell receptors guided by HLA-A*03:01 and HLA-A*11:01 immunopeptidomics.

BACKGROUND: Tumor-specific mutated proteins can create immunogenic non-self, mutation-containing 'neoepitopes' that are attractive targets for adoptive T-cell therapies. To avoid the complexity of defining patient-specific, private neoepitopes, there has been major interest in targeting common shared mutations in driver genes using off-the-shelf T-cell receptors (TCRs) engineered into autologous lymphocytes. However, identifying the precise naturally processed neoepitopes to pursue is a complex and challenging process. One method to definitively demonstrate whether an epitope is presented at the cell surface is to elute peptides bound to a specific major histocompatibility complex (MHC) allele and analyze them by mass spectrometry (MS). These MS data can then be prospectively applied to isolate TCRs specific to the neoepitope. METHODS: We created mono-allelic cell lines expressing one class I HLA allele and one common mutated oncogene in order to eliminate HLA deconvolution requirements and increase the signal of recovered peptides. MHC-bound peptides on the surface of these cell lines were immunoprecipitated, purified, and analyzed using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, producing a list of mutation-containing minimal epitopes. To validate the immunogenicity of these neoepitopes, HLA-transgenic mice were vaccinated using the minimal peptides identified by MS in order to generate neoepitope-reactive TCRs. Specificity of these candidate TCRs was confirmed by peptide titration and recognition of transduced targets. RESULTS: We identified precise neoepitopes derived from mutated isoforms of KRAS, EGFR, BRAF, and PIK3CA presented by HLA-A*03:01 and/or HLA-A*11:01 across multiple biological replicates. From our MS data, we were able to successfully isolate murine TCRs that specifically recognize four HLA-A*11:01 restricted neoepitopes (KRAS G13D, PIK3CA E545K, EGFR L858R and BRAF V600E) and three HLA-A*03:01 restricted neoepitopes (KRAS G12V, EGFR L858R and BRAF V600E). CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that an MS approach can be used to demonstrate which shared oncogene-derived neoepitopes are processed and presented by common HLA alleles, and those MS data can rapidly be used to develop TCRs against these common tumor-specific antigens. Although further characterization of these neoepitope-specific murine TCRs is required, ultimately, they have the potential to be used clinically for adoptive cell therapy.

Correction: TDP-43 and other hnRNPs regulate cryptic exon inclusion of a key ALS/FTD risk gene, UNC13A.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002028.].

Application of Aligned-UMAP to longitudinal biomedical studies.

High-dimensional data analysis starts with projecting the data to low dimensions to visualize and understand the underlying data structure. Several methods have been developed for dimensionality reduction, but they are limited to cross-sectional datasets. The recently proposed Aligned-UMAP, an extension of the uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP) algorithm, can visualize high-dimensional longitudinal datasets. We demonstrated its utility for researchers to identify exciting patterns and trajectories within enormous datasets in biological sciences. We found that the algorithm parameters also play a crucial role and must be tuned carefully to utilize the algorithm's potential fully. We also discussed key points to remember and directions for future extensions of Aligned-UMAP. Further, we made our code open source to enhance the reproducibility and applicability of our work. We believe our benchmarking study becomes more important as more and more high-dimensional longitudinal data in biomedical research become available.

Variant biomarker discovery using mass spectrometry-based proteogenomics.

Genomic diversity plays critical roles in risk of disease pathogenesis and diagnosis. While genomic variants-including single nucleotide variants, frameshift variants, and mis-splicing isoforms-are commonly detected at the DNA or RNA level, their translated variant protein or polypeptide products are ultimately the functional units of the associated disease. These products are often released in biofluids and could be leveraged for clinical diagnosis and patient stratification. Recent emergence of integrated analysis of genomics with mass spectrometry-based proteomics for biomarker discovery, also known as proteogenomics, have significantly advanced the understanding disease risk variants, precise medicine, and biomarker discovery. In this review, we discuss variant proteins in the context of cancers and neurodegenerative diseases, outline current and emerging proteogenomic approaches for biomarker discovery, and provide a comprehensive proteogenomic strategy for detection of putative biomarker candidates in human biospecimens. This strategy can be implemented for proteogenomic studies in any field of enquiry. Our review timely addresses the need of biomarkers for aging related diseases.

The short-chain fatty acid acetate coordinates with CD30 to modulate T-cell survival.

As an important substrate for cell metabolism, the short-chain fatty acid acetate emerges as a regulator of cell fate and function. However, its role in T-cell survival and its underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that acetate modulates T-cell apoptosis via potentiation of α-tubulin acetylation. We further show that acetate treatment effectively increases the expression of the tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) family member CD30 by enhancing its gene transcription. Moreover, CD30 physically associates with and stabilizes the deacetylase HDAC6, which deacetylates α-tubulin to decrease microtubule stability. Proteomic profiling of CD30 knockout (Cd30-/-) T-cells reveals elevated expression of anti-apoptotic BCL2 family proteins and thus promotes T-cell survival via a microtubule-Bcl-2 axis. Taken together, our results demonstrate that acetate is a regulator of T-cell survival by controlling levels of acetylated α-tubulin. This suggests that therapeutic manipulation of acetate metabolism may facilitate optimal T-cell responses in pathological conditions.

TDP-43 and other hnRNPs regulate cryptic exon inclusion of a key ALS/FTD risk gene, UNC13A.

A major function of TAR DNA-binding protein-43 (TDP-43) is to repress the inclusion of cryptic exons during RNA splicing. One of these cryptic exons is in UNC13A, a genetic risk factor for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The accumulation of cryptic UNC13A in disease is heightened by the presence of a risk haplotype located within the cryptic exon itself. Here, we revealed that TDP-43 extreme N-terminus is important to repress UNC13A cryptic exon inclusion. Further, we found hnRNP L, hnRNP A1, and hnRNP A2B1 bind UNC13A RNA and repress cryptic exon inclusion, independently of TDP-43. Finally, higher levels of hnRNP L protein associate with lower burden of UNC13A cryptic RNA in ALS/FTD brains. Our findings suggest that while TDP-43 is the main repressor of UNC13A cryptic exon inclusion, other hnRNPs contribute to its regulation and may potentially function as disease modifiers.

A cellular taxonomy of the adult human spinal cord.

The mammalian spinal cord functions as a community of cell types for sensory processing, autonomic control, and movement. While animal models have advanced our understanding of spinal cellular diversity, characterizing human biology directly is important to uncover specialized features of basic function and human pathology. Here, we present a cellular taxonomy of the adult human spinal cord using single-nucleus RNA sequencing with spatial transcriptomics and antibody validation. We identified 29 glial clusters and 35 neuronal clusters, organized principally by anatomical location. To demonstrate the relevance of this resource to human disease, we analyzed spinal motoneurons, which degenerate in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other diseases. We found that compared with other spinal neurons, human motoneurons are defined by genes related to cell size, cytoskeletal structure, and ALS, suggesting a specialized molecular repertoire underlying their selective vulnerability. We include a web resource to facilitate further investigations into human spinal cord biology.

Mis-spliced transcripts generate de novo proteins in TDP-43-related ALS/FTD.

Functional loss of TDP-43, an RNA-binding protein genetically and pathologically linked to ALS and FTD, leads to inclusion of cryptic exons in hundreds of transcripts during disease. Cryptic exons can promote degradation of affected transcripts, deleteriously altering cellular function through loss-of-function mechanisms. However, the possibility of de novo protein synthesis from cryptic exon transcripts has not been explored. Here, we show that mRNA transcripts harboring cryptic exons generate de novo proteins both in TDP-43 deficient cellular models and in disease. Using coordinated transcriptomic and proteomic studies of TDP-43 depleted iPSC-derived neurons, we identified numerous peptides that mapped to cryptic exons. Cryptic exons identified in iPSC models were highly predictive of cryptic exons expressed in brains of patients with TDP-43 proteinopathy, including cryptic transcripts that generated de novo proteins. We discovered that inclusion of cryptic peptide sequences in proteins altered their interactions with other proteins, thereby likely altering their function. Finally, we showed that these de novo peptides were present in CSF from patients with ALS. The demonstration of cryptic exon translation suggests new mechanisms for ALS pathophysiology downstream of TDP-43 dysfunction and may provide a strategy for novel biomarker development.

ProtPipe: A Multifunctional Data Analysis Pipeline for Proteomics and Peptidomics.

Mass spectrometry (MS) is a technique widely employed for the identification and characterization of proteins, personalized medicine, systems biology and biomedical applications. By combining MS with different proteomics approaches such as immunopurification MS, immunopeptidomics, and total protein proteomics, researchers can gain insights into protein-protein interactions, immune responses, cellular processes, and disease mechanisms. The application of MS-based proteomics in these areas continues to advance our understanding of protein function, cellular signaling, and complex biological systems. Data analysis for mass spectrometry is a critical process that includes identifying and quantifying proteins and peptides and exploring biological functions for these proteins in downstream analysis. To address the complexities associated with MS data analysis, we developed ProtPipe to streamline and automate the processing and analysis of high-throughput proteomics and peptidomics datasets. The pipeline facilitates data quality control, sample filtering, and normalization, ensuring robust and reliable downstream analysis. ProtPipe provides downstream analysis including identifying differential abundance proteins and peptides, pathway enrichment analysis, protein-protein interaction analysis, and MHC1-peptide binding affinity. ProtPipe generates annotated tables and diagnostic visualizations from statistical postprocessing and computation of fold-changes across pairwise conditions, predefined in an experimental design. ProtPipe is well-documented open-source software and is available at https://github.com/NIH-CARD/ProtPipe , accompanied by a web interface.

A reference human induced pluripotent stem cell line for large-scale collaborative studies.

Human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines are a powerful tool for studying development and disease, but the considerable phenotypic variation between lines makes it challenging to replicate key findings and integrate data across research groups. To address this issue, we sub-cloned candidate human iPSC lines and deeply characterized their genetic properties using whole genome sequencing, their genomic stability upon CRISPR-Cas9-based gene editing, and their phenotypic properties including differentiation to commonly used cell types. These studies identified KOLF2.1J as an all-around well-performing iPSC line. We then shared KOLF2.1J with groups around the world who tested its performance in head-to-head comparisons with their own preferred iPSC lines across a diverse range of differentiation protocols and functional assays. On the strength of these findings, we have made KOLF2.1J and its gene-edited derivative clones readily accessible to promote the standardization required for large-scale collaborative science in the stem cell field.

TDP-43 loss and ALS-risk SNPs drive mis-splicing and depletion of UNC13A.

Variants of UNC13A, a critical gene for synapse function, increase the risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia1-3, two related neurodegenerative diseases defined by mislocalization of the RNA-binding protein TDP-434,5. Here we show that TDP-43 depletion induces robust inclusion of a cryptic exon in UNC13A, resulting in nonsense-mediated decay and loss of UNC13A protein. Two common intronic UNC13A polymorphisms strongly associated with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia risk overlap with TDP-43 binding sites. These polymorphisms potentiate cryptic exon inclusion, both in cultured cells and in brains and spinal cords from patients with these conditions. Our findings, which demonstrate a genetic link between loss of nuclear TDP-43 function and disease, reveal the mechanism by which UNC13A variants exacerbate the effects of decreased TDP-43 function. They further provide a promising therapeutic target for TDP-43 proteinopathies.

Profiling the Skeletal Muscle Proteome in Patients on Atypical Antipsychotics and Mood Stabilizers.

Atypical antipsychotics (AAP) are used in the treatment of severe mental illness. They are associated with several metabolic side effects including insulin resistance. The skeletal muscle is the primary tissue responsible for insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. Dysfunction of protein regulation within the skeletal muscle following treatment with AAPs may play a role in the associated metabolic side effects. The objective of this study was to measure protein abundance in the skeletal muscle of patients on long-term AAP or mood stabilizer treatment. Cross-sectional muscle biopsies were obtained from patients with bipolar disorder and global protein abundance was measured using stable isotope labeling by amino acid (SILAC) combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS). Sixteen patients completed muscle biopsies and were included in the proteomic analyses. A total of 40 proteins were significantly different between the AAP group and the mood stabilizer group. In-silico pathway analysis identified significant enrichment in several pathways including glucose metabolism, cell cycle, apoptosis, and folate metabolism. Proteome abundance changes also differed based on protein biological processes and function. In summary, significant differences in proteomic profiles were identified in the skeletal muscle between patients on AAPs and mood stabilizers. Future work is needed to validate these findings in prospectively sampled populations.