Gpr124 is essential for blood-brain barrier integrity in central nervous system disease.

Although blood-brain barrier (BBB) compromise is central to the etiology of diverse central nervous system (CNS) disorders, endothelial receptor proteins that control BBB function are poorly defined. The endothelial G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) Gpr124 has been reported to be required for normal forebrain angiogenesis and BBB function in mouse embryos, but the role of this receptor in adult animals is unknown. Here Gpr124 conditional knockout (CKO) in the endothelia of adult mice did not affect homeostatic BBB integrity, but resulted in BBB disruption and microvascular hemorrhage in mouse models of both ischemic stroke and glioblastoma, accompanied by reduced cerebrovascular canonical Wnt-ß-catenin signaling. Constitutive activation of Wnt-ß-catenin signaling fully corrected the BBB disruption and hemorrhage defects of Gpr124-CKO mice, with rescue of the endothelial gene tight junction, pericyte coverage and extracellular-matrix deficits. We thus identify Gpr124 as an endothelial GPCR specifically required for endothelial Wnt signaling and BBB integrity under pathological conditions in adult mice. This finding implicates Gpr124 as a potential therapeutic target for human CNS disorders characterized by BBB disruption.

Applying the logic of genetic interaction to discover small molecules that functionally interact with human disease alleles.

Despite rapid advances in the genetics of complex human diseases, understanding the significance of human disease alleles remains a critical roadblock to clinical translation. Here, we present a chemical biology approach that uses perturbation with small molecules of known mechanism to reveal mechanistic and therapeutic consequences of human disease alleles. To maximize human applicability, we perform chemical screening on multiple cell lines isolated from individual patients, allowing the effects of disease alleles to be studied in their native genetic context. Chemical screen analysis combines the logic of traditional genetic interaction screens with analytic methods from high-dimensionality gene expression analyses. We rank compounds according to their ability to discriminate between cell lines that are mutant versus wild type at a disease gene (i.e., the compounds induce phenotypes that differ the most across the two classes). A technique called compound set enrichment analysis (CSEA), modeled after a widely used method to identify pathways from gene expression data, identifies sets of functionally or structurally related compounds that are statistically enriched among the most discriminating compounds. This chemical:genetic interaction approach was applied to patient-derived cells in a monogenic form of diabetes and identified several classes of compounds (including FDA-approved drugs) that show functional interactions with the causative disease gene, and also modulate insulin secretion, a critical disease phenotype. In summary, perturbation of patient-derived cells with small molecules of known mechanism, together with compound-set-based pathway analysis, can identify small molecules and pathways that functionally interact with disease alleles, and that can modulate disease networks for therapeutic effect.

G Protein-Coupled Receptor 124 (GPR124) Gene Polymorphisms and Risk of Brain Arteriovenous Malformation.

Abnormal endothelial proliferation and angiogenesis may contribute to brain arteriovenous malformation (BAVM) formation. G protein-coupled receptor 124 (GPR124) mediates embryonic CNS angiogenesis; thus we investigated the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and haplotypes in GPR124 with risk of BAVM. Ten tagging SNPs spanning 39 kb of GPR124 were genotyped in 195 Caucasian BAVM patients and 243 Caucasian controls. SNP and haplotype association with risk of BAVM was screened using χ(2) analysis. Associated variants were further evaluated using multivariable logistic regression, adjusting for age and sex. The minor alleles of 3 GPR124 SNPs adjacent to exon 2 and localized to a 16 kb region of high linkage disequilibrium were associated with reduced risk of BAVM (rs7015566 A, P=0.001; rs7823249 T, P=0.014; rs12676965 C, P=0.007). SNP rs7015566 (intron 1) remained associated after permutation testing (additive model P=0.033). Haplotype analysis revealed a significant overall association (χ(2)=12.55, 4 df, P=0.014); 2 haplotypes (ATCC, P=0.006 and GGCT, P=0.008) were associated with risk of BAVM. We genotyped a known synonymous SNP (rs16887051) in exon 2, however genotype frequency did not differ between cases and controls. Sequencing of conserved GPR124 regions revealed a novel indel polymorphism in intron 2. Immunohistochemistry confirmed GPR124 expression in the endothelium with no qualitative difference in expression between BAVM cases and controls. SNP rs7015566 mapping to intron 1 of GPR124 was associated with BAVM susceptibility among Caucasians. Future work is focused on investigating this gene region.