The C9ORF72 GGGGCC expansion forms RNA G-quadruplex inclusions and sequesters hnRNP H to disrupt splicing in ALS patient brains
- Columbia University, United States
- Columbia University Medical Center, United States
Abstract
An expanded GGGGCC hexanucleotide in C9ORF72 (C9) is the most frequent known cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). It has been proposed that expanded transcripts adopt G-quadruplex (G-Q) structures and associate with proteins, but whether this occurs and contributes to disease is unknown. Here we show first that the protein that predominantly associates with GGGGCC repeat RNA in vitro is the splicing factor hnRNP H, and that this interaction is linked to G-Q formation. We then show that G-Q RNA foci are more abundant in C9 ALS patient fibroblasts and astrocytes compared to those without the expansion, and more frequently colocalize with hnRNP H. Importantly, we demonstrate dysregulated splicing of multiple known hnRNP H-target transcripts in C9 patient brains, which correlates with elevated insoluble hnRNP H/G-Q aggregates. Together, our data implicate C9 expansion-mediated sequestration of hnRNP H as a significant contributor to neurodegeneration in C9 ALS/FTD.
Data availability
-
Distinct brain transcriptome profiles in c9orf72-associated and sporadic ALSPublicly available at the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (accession no: GSE67196).
-
Illumina mRNA-Seq of control and hnRNP H knockdown in 293T cellsPublicly available at the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (accession no: GSE16642).
-
Analysis and design of RNA sequencing experiments for identifying mRNA isoform regulationPublicly available at the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (accession no: GSE23694).
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
NIH Office of the Director (Training Grant)
- Erin G Conlon
NIH Office of the Director (RO1)
- James L Manley
NIH Office of the Director (R35 GM 118136)
- James L Manley
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: Informed consent, including consent to publish, was obtained for human derived fibroblast and astrocyte lines used in this study by the IRB of Columbia University under protocols #AAAB0483 and #AAAC1257. For fibroblasts, written consent was given by the patients, and for astrocytes, written consent was given by the families of the deceased. Human tissue was donated for research purposes by the next of kin.
Copyright
© 2016, Conlon et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Download links
Further reading
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
The protein ligase Connectase can be used to fuse proteins to small molecules, solid carriers, or other proteins. Compared to other protein ligases, it offers greater substrate specificity, higher catalytic efficiency, and catalyzes no side reactions. However, its reaction is reversible, resulting in only 50% fusion product from two equally abundant educts. Here, we present a simple method to reliably obtain 100% fusion product in 1:1 conjugation reactions. This method is efficient for protein-protein or protein-peptide fusions at the N- or C-termini. It enables the generation of defined and completely labeled antibody conjugates with one fusion partner on each chain. The reaction requires short incubation times with small amounts of enzyme and is effective even at low substrate concentrations and at low temperatures. With these characteristics, it presents a valuable new tool for bioengineering.
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
- Microbiology and Infectious Disease
Glutamine synthetases (GS) are central enzymes essential for the nitrogen metabolism across all domains of life. Consequently, they have been extensively studied for more than half a century. Based on the ATP-dependent ammonium assimilation generating glutamine, GS expression and activity are strictly regulated in all organisms. In the methanogenic archaeon Methanosarcina mazei, it has been shown that the metabolite 2-oxoglutarate (2-OG) directly induces the GS activity. Besides, modulation of the activity by interaction with small proteins (GlnK1 and sP26) has been reported. Here, we show that the strong activation of M. mazei GS (GlnA1) by 2-OG is based on the 2-OG dependent dodecamer assembly of GlnA1 by using mass photometry (MP) and single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) analysis of purified strep-tagged GlnA1. The dodecamer assembly from dimers occurred without any detectable intermediate oligomeric state and was not affected in the presence of GlnK1. The 2.39 Å cryo-EM structure of the dodecameric complex in the presence of 12.5 mM 2-OG demonstrated that 2-OG is binding between two monomers. Thereby, 2-OG appears to induce the dodecameric assembly in a cooperative way. Furthermore, the active site is primed by an allosteric interaction cascade caused by 2-OG-binding towards an adaption of an open active state conformation. In the presence of additional glutamine, strong feedback inhibition of GS activity was observed. Since glutamine dependent disassembly of the dodecamer was excluded by MP, feedback inhibition most likely relies on the binding of glutamine to the catalytic site. Based on our findings, we propose that under nitrogen limitation the induction of M. mazei GS into a catalytically active dodecamer is not affected by GlnK1 and crucially depends on the presence of 2-OG.
