ERK/MAPK Signaling Is Required for Pathway-Specific Striatal Motor Functions.

The ERK/MAPK intracellular signaling pathway is hypothesized to be a key regulator of striatal activity via modulation of synaptic plasticity and gene transcription. However, prior investigations into striatal ERK/MAPK functions have yielded conflicting results. Further, these studies have not delineated the cell-type-specific roles of ERK/MAPK signaling due to the reliance on globally administered pharmacological ERK/MAPK inhibitors and the use of genetic models that only partially reduce total ERK/MAPK activity. Here, we generated mouse models in which ERK/MAPK signaling was completely abolished in each of the two distinct classes of medium spiny neurons (MSNs). ERK/MAPK deletion in D1R-MSNs (direct pathway) resulted in decreased locomotor behavior, reduced weight gain, and early postnatal lethality. In contrast, loss of ERK/MAPK signaling in D2R-MSNs (indirect pathway) resulted in a profound hyperlocomotor phenotype. ERK/MAPK-deficient D2R-MSNs exhibited a significant reduction in dendritic spine density, markedly suppressed electrical excitability, and suppression of activity-associated gene expression even after pharmacological stimulation. Our results demonstrate the importance of ERK/MAPK signaling in governing the motor functions of the striatal direct and indirect pathways. Our data further show a critical role for ERK in maintaining the excitability and plasticity of D2R-MSNs.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Alterations in ERK/MAPK activity are associated with drug abuse, as well as neuropsychiatric and movement disorders. However, genetic evidence defining the functions of ERK/MAPK signaling in striatum-related neurophysiology and behavior is lacking. We show that loss of ERK/MAPK signaling leads to pathway-specific alterations in motor function, reduced neuronal excitability, and the inability of medium spiny neurons to regulate activity-induced gene expression. Our results underscore the potential importance of the ERK/MAPK pathway in human movement disorders.

Diet-induced obesity prolongs neuroinflammation and recruits CCR2(+) monocytes to the brain following herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1 latency in mice.

Herpes simplex virus (HSV)-1 is a ubiquitous human infection, with increased prevalence in obese populations. Obesity has been linked to increased inflammation, susceptibility to infection, and higher rates of anxiety disorder and cognitive impairment. To determine how obesity alters neuroinflammation and behavior following infection, we infected weanling C57BL/6 or CCR2(RFP/+)/CX3CR1(GFP/+) mice with a very low dose of HSV-1. Following viral latency (14days post infection (d p.i.)), mice were randomly assigned to remain on the low fat (LF) diet or switched to a 45% high fat (HF) diet. Eight weeks post diet shift, latently infected mice on the HF diet (HSV-HF) had greater microglial activation and infiltration of inflammatory CCR2(+) monocytes in the hypothalamus and dentate gyrus, in comparison to both HSV-LF mice and uninfected mice on LF and HF diets. VCAM staining was present in hypothalamus and hippocampus of the HSV-HF mice in the areas of monocyte infiltration. Infiltrating monocytes also produced proinflammatory cytokines demonstrating that, along with activated microglia, monocytes contribute to sustained neuroinflammation in latently infected obese mice. Utilizing a light-dark preference test, we found that HSV-HF mice had increased anxiety-like behavior. In the marble-burying test, HF diet and HSV infection resulted in increased numbers of buried marbles. Together, these mice provide a useful, testable model to study the biobehavioral effects of obesity and latent HSV-1 infection in regards to anxiety and may provide a tool for studying diet intervention programs in the future.

Genetic Architecture and Analysis Practices of Circulating Metabolites in the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Program.

Circulating metabolite levels partly reflect the state of human health and diseases, and can be impacted by genetic determinants. Hundreds of loci associated with circulating metabolites have been identified; however, most findings focus on predominantly European ancestry or single study analyses. Leveraging the rich metabolomics resources generated by the NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Program, we harmonized and accessibly cataloged 1,729 circulating metabolites among 25,058 ancestrally-diverse samples. We provided recommendations for outlier and imputation handling to process metabolite data, as well as a general analytical framework. We further performed a pooled analysis following our practical recommendations and discovered 1,778 independent loci associated with 667 metabolites. Among 108 novel locus - metabolite pairs, we detected not only novel loci within previously implicated metabolite associated genes, but also novel genes (such as GAB3 and VSIG4 located in the X chromosome) that have putative roles in metabolic regulation. In the sex-stratified analysis, we revealed 85 independent locus-metabolite pairs with evidence of sexual dimorphism, including well-known metabolic genes such as FADS2 , D2HGDH , SUGP1 , UTG2B17 , strongly supporting the importance of exploring sex difference in the human metabolome. Taken together, our study depicted the genetic contribution to circulating metabolite levels, providing additional insight into the understanding of human health.

SOX2 expression levels distinguish between neural progenitor populations of the developing dorsal telencephalon.

The HMG-Box transcription factor SOX2 is expressed in neural progenitor populations throughout the developing and adult central nervous system and is necessary to maintain their progenitor identity. However, it is unclear whether SOX2 levels are uniformly expressed across all neural progenitor populations. In the developing dorsal telencephalon, two distinct populations of neural progenitors, radial glia and intermediate progenitor cells, are responsible for generating a majority of excitatory neurons found in the adult neocortex. Here we demonstrate, using both cellular and molecular analyses, that SOX2 is differentially expressed between radial glial and intermediate progenitor populations. Moreover, utilizing a SOX2(EGFP) mouse line, we show that this differential expression can be used to prospectively isolate distinct, viable populations of radial glia and intermediate cells for in vitro analysis. Given the limited repertoire of cell-surface markers currently available for neural progenitor cells, this provides an invaluable tool for prospectively identifying and isolating distinct classes of neural progenitor cells from the central nervous system.

Modulation of nicotine but not ethanol preference by the mouse Chrna4 A529T polymorphism.

Available evidence indicates that common genes influence alcohol and tobacco abuse in humans. The studies reported here used mouse models to evaluate the hypothesis that genetically determined variability in the alpha4beta2* nicotinic receptor modulates genetically determined variability in the intake of both nicotine and alcohol. Data obtained with inbred mouse strains suggested an association between a polymorphism in the mouse alpha4 nAChR subunit gene, Chrna4, and variability in nicotine and ethanol preference. These associations were assessed in F2 animals derived by crossing C57BL/6-super(beta2-/-) mice and A/J mice. The results obtained by the authors indicate that the polymorphism in Chrna4 plays an important role in modulating variability in oral nicotine intake but is linked to a gene that regulates alcohol intake.

Isolation, culture, and differentiation of progenitor cells from the central nervous system.

INTRODUCTIONThe ability to prospectively identify and characterize neural progenitor cells in vivo has been difficult due to a lack of cell-surface markers specific for these cell types. A widely used in vitro culture method, known as the Neurosphere Assay (NSA), has provided a means to retrospectively identify neural progenitor cells as well as to determine both their self-renewal capacity and their ability to generate the three primary cell types of the nervous system: neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Today, combined with the establishment of multiple transgenic mouse strains expressing fluorescent markers and advances in cell isolation techniques such as fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), the NSA provides a powerful system to prospectively elucidate neural progenitor characteristics and functions. Here we describe methods for the isolation, culture, and differentiation of neural progenitors from the developing mouse and adult cortex.

SOX2 is a dose-dependent regulator of retinal neural progenitor competence.

Approximately 10% of humans with anophthalmia (absent eye) or severe microphthalmia (small eye) show haploid insufficiency due to mutations in SOX2, a SOXB1-HMG box transcription factor. However, at present, the molecular or cellular mechanisms responsible for these conditions are poorly understood. Here, we directly assessed the requirement for SOX2 during eye development by generating a gene-dosage allelic series of Sox2 mutations in the mouse. The Sox2 mutant mice display a range of eye phenotypes consistent with human syndromes and the severity of these phenotypes directly relates to the levels of SOX2 expression found in progenitor cells of the neural retina. Retinal progenitor cells with conditionally ablated Sox2 lose competence to both proliferate and terminally differentiate. In contrast, in Sox2 hypomorphic/null mice, a reduction of SOX2 expression to <40% of normal causes variable microphthalmia as a result of aberrant neural progenitor differentiation. Furthermore, we provide genetic and molecular evidence that SOX2 activity, in a concentration-dependent manner, plays a key role in the regulation of the NOTCH1 signaling pathway in retinal progenitor cells. Collectively, these results show that precise regulation of SOX2 dosage is critical for temporal and spatial regulation of retinal progenitor cell differentiation and provide a cellular and molecular model for understanding how hypomorphic levels of SOX2 cause retinal defects in humans.

Bovine serum albumin enhances nicotinic acetylcholine receptor function in mouse thalamic synaptosomes.

Bovine serum albumin (BSA) enhances nicotinic agonist-induced (86)Rb+ efflux from synaptosomal fractions of the mouse thalamus, but how it does so is not understood. The experiments reported here indicated that BSA enhancement of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor function was rapid, reversible, depended on BSA concentration, and occurred at all points of the nicotinic agonist concentration-response curve. We hypothesized that BSA-extractable compounds, such as long-chain fatty acids, were responsible for inhibiting nicotinic responses in the absence of BSA. The hypothesis was tested by applying arachidonic, linolenic, or oleic acids in the absence of BSA after an initial prewash with BSA. All three fatty acids exhibited a rapid, concentration-dependent inhibition of nicotinic-agonist stimulated ion flux. Concentration-response curves produced after 30 s of pre-treatment with arachidonic acid were similar to those seen when BSA was completely absent. The effects of pre-treatment were reversed immediately by the introduction of BSA. Furthermore, no effects of fatty acids were observed when preparations were continuously exposed to BSA or when BSA was continuously absent. These results suggest that the removal of endogenous, inhibitory compounds is largely responsible for the rapid, potentiating action of BSA at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors expressed in the mouse thalamus.

A polymorphism in the alpha4 nicotinic receptor gene (Chrna4) modulates enhancement of nicotinic receptor function by ethanol.

BACKGROUND: Several studies indicate that ethanol enhances the activity of alpha4beta2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR). Our laboratory has identified a polymorphism in the alpha4 gene that results in the substitution of an alanine (A) for threonine (T) at amino acid position 529 in the second intracellular loop of the alpha4 protein. Mouse strains expressing the A variant have, in general, greater nAChR-mediated 86Rb+ efflux in response to nicotine than strains with the T variant. However, the possibility of the polymorphism modulating the effects of ethanol on the 86Rb+ efflux response has not been investigated. METHODS: We have used the 86Rb+ efflux method to study the acute effects of ethanol on the function of the alpha4beta2 nAChR in the thalamus in six different mouse strains. Experiments were also performed on tissue samples taken from F2 intercross animals. The F2 animals were derived from A/J mice crossed with a substrain of C57BL/6J mice that carried a null mutation for the gene encoding the beta2 nAChR subunit. RESULTS: In strains carrying the A polymorphism (A/J, AKR/J, C3H/Ibg), coapplication of ethanol (10-100 mM) with nicotine (0.03-300 microM) increased maximal ion flux when compared with nicotine alone with no effect on agonist potency. In contrast, ethanol had little effect on the nicotine concentration-response curve in tissue prepared from strains carrying the T polymorphism (Balb/Ibg, C57BL/6J, C58/J). Experiments with the F2 hybrids demonstrated that one copy of the A polymorphism was sufficient to produce a significant enhancement of nAChR function by ethanol (50 mM) in animals that were also beta2 +/+. Ethanol had no effect on nicotine concentration-response curves in T/T beta2 +/+ animals. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the A/T polymorphism influences the initial sensitivity of the alpha4beta2 nAChR to ethanol.

Null mutant analysis of responses to nicotine: deletion of beta2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit but not alpha7 subunit reduces sensitivity to nicotine-induced locomotor depression and hypothermia.

The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subtypes alpha4beta2 and alpha7 comprise the majority of brain nicotine-binding sites. Classical genetic strategies using inbred mice and their hybrids suggest that nicotine's effects on locomotor activity and body temperature are influenced by alpha4beta2 but not alpha7 receptors. To evaluate directly the role of these nicotinic subtypes on responses to nicotine, beta2 and alpha7 null mutant (-/-) mice, as well as wild-type (+/+) and heterozygous (+/-) mice, were tested for baseline body temperature and locomotion and nicotine (0-1.5 mg/kg)-induced changes in these responses. Basal responses for these measures were similar for all beta2 genotypes, but baseline Y-maze activity was higher in alpha7-/- mice compared with alpha7+/+ mice. Following nicotine injection, dose-dependent decreases in body temperature and locomotor activity were observed for all three genotypes of both beta2 and alpha7 mice. Although responses in alpha7 mice did not differ among genotypes, beta2 gene deletion was found to have a gene-dependent effect on nicotine's effects. beta2-/- mice were less sensitive to nicotine-induced locomotor depression and hypothermia at low nicotine doses (.25-.5 mg/kg) but were no different from beta2+/+ mice at the highest doses tested (1.0-1.5 mg/kg). Residual responses at high nicotine doses in beta2-/- mice as well as responses in all alpha7 and beta2 mouse genotypes were mediated by nicotinic receptors, since mecamylamine (1.0 mg/kg) blocked all responses following 1.0 mg/kg nicotine. This finding suggests receptors that include the beta2 nAChR subunit partially mediate nicotine's effects on locomotor activity and body temperature.