Distinct roles for two Caenorhabditis elegans acid-sensing ion channels in an ultradian clock
- MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
- University of Rochester, United States
- University of Kansas, United States
- Fudan University, China
Abstract
Biological clocks are fundamental to an organism’s health, controlling periodicity of behaviour and metabolism. Here, we identify two acid-sensing ion channels, with very different proton sensing properties, and describe their role in an ultradian clock, the defecation motor program (DMP) of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. An ACD-5-containing channel, on the apical membrane of the intestinal epithelium, is essential for maintenance of luminal acidity, and thus the rhythmic oscillations in lumen pH. In contrast, the second channel, composed of FLR-1, ACD-3 and/or DEL-5, located on the basolateral membrane, controls the intracellular Ca2+ wave and forms a core component of the master oscillator that controls timing and rhythmicity of the DMP. flr-1 and acd-3/del-5 mutants show severe developmental and metabolic defects. We thus directly link the proton-sensing properties of these channels to their physiological roles in pH regulation and Ca2+ signalling, the generation of an ultradian oscillator, and its metabolic consequences.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Medical Research Council (MC-A023-5PB91)
- William R Schafer
Wellcome Trust (WT103784MA)
- William R Schafer
KU Center for Chemical Biology of Infectious Diseases (P20GM113117)
- Brian Ackley
National Institutes of Health (R01AG067617)
- Keith Nehrke
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Manuel Zimmer, University of Vienna, Austria
Publication history
- Received: November 24, 2021
- Accepted: June 1, 2022
- Accepted Manuscript published: June 6, 2022 (version 1)
Copyright
© 2022, Kaulich 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.
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Distinct roles for two Caenorhabditis elegans acid-sensing ion channels in an ultradian clock
eLife 11:e75837.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.75837
Further reading
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- Cell Biology
- Medicine
Background:
Patients with cardiomyopathy of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) are at risk of developing life-threatening arrhythmias, but the mechanisms are unknown. We aimed to determine the role of ion channels controlling cardiac excitability in the mechanisms of arrhythmias in DMD patients.
Methods:
To test whether dystrophin mutations lead to defective cardiac NaV1.5–Kir2.1 channelosomes and arrhythmias, we generated iPSC-CMs from two hemizygous DMD males, a heterozygous female, and two unrelated control males. We conducted studies including confocal microscopy, protein expression analysis, patch-clamping, non-viral piggy-bac gene expression, optical mapping and contractility assays.
Results:
Two patients had abnormal ECGs with frequent runs of ventricular tachycardia. iPSC-CMs from all DMD patients showed abnormal action potential profiles, slowed conduction velocities, and reduced sodium (INa) and inward rectifier potassium (IK1) currents. Membrane NaV1.5 and Kir2.1 protein levels were reduced in hemizygous DMD iPSC-CMs but not in heterozygous iPSC-CMs. Remarkably, transfecting just one component of the dystrophin protein complex (α1-syntrophin) in hemizygous iPSC-CMs from one patient restored channelosome function, INa and IK1 densities, and action potential profile in single cells. In addition, α1-syntrophin expression restored impulse conduction and contractility and prevented reentrant arrhythmias in hiPSC-CM monolayers.
Conclusions:
We provide the first demonstration that iPSC-CMs reprogrammed from skin fibroblasts of DMD patients with cardiomyopathy have a dysfunction of the NaV1.5–Kir2.1 channelosome, with consequent reduction of cardiac excitability and conduction. Altogether, iPSC-CMs from patients with DMD cardiomyopathy have a NaV1.5–Kir2.1 channelosome dysfunction, which can be rescued by the scaffolding protein α1-syntrophin to restore excitability and prevent arrhythmias.
Funding:
Supported by National Institutes of Health R01 HL122352 grant; ‘la Caixa’ Banking Foundation (HR18-00304); Fundación La Marató TV3: Ayudas a la investigación en enfermedades raras 2020 (LA MARATO-2020); Instituto de Salud Carlos III/FEDER/FSE; Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Framework Programme GA-965286 to JJ; the CNIC is supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCIN) and the Pro CNIC Foundation), and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (grant CEX2020-001041-S funded by MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033). American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship 19POST34380706s to JVEN. Israel Science Foundation to OB and MA [824/19]. Rappaport grant [01012020RI]; and Niedersachsen Foundation [ZN3452] to OB; US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) to OB and TH [2019039]; Dr. Bernard Lublin Donation to OB; and The Duchenne Parent Project Netherlands (DPPNL 2029771) to OB. National Institutes of Health R01 AR068428 to DM and US-Israel Binational Science Foundation Grant [2013032] to DM and OB.
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- Cell Biology
- Developmental Biology
Heterozygous, missense mutations in α- or β-tubulin genes are associated with a wide range of human brain malformations, known as tubulinopathies. We seek to understand whether a mutation’s impact at the molecular and cellular levels scale with the severity of brain malformation. Here, we focus on two mutations at the valine 409 residue of TUBA1A, V409I, and V409A, identified in patients with pachygyria or lissencephaly, respectively. We find that ectopic expression of TUBA1A-V409I/A mutants disrupt neuronal migration in mice and promote excessive neurite branching and a decrease in the number of neurite retraction events in primary rat neuronal cultures. These neuronal phenotypes are accompanied by increased microtubule acetylation and polymerization rates. To determine the molecular mechanisms, we modeled the V409I/A mutants in budding yeast and found that they promote intrinsically faster microtubule polymerization rates in cells and in reconstitution experiments with purified tubulin. In addition, V409I/A mutants decrease the recruitment of XMAP215/Stu2 to plus ends in budding yeast and ablate tubulin binding to TOG (tumor overexpressed gene) domains. In each assay tested, the TUBA1A-V409I mutant exhibits an intermediate phenotype between wild type and the more severe TUBA1A-V409A, reflecting the severity observed in brain malformations. Together, our data support a model in which the V409I/A mutations disrupt microtubule regulation typically conferred by XMAP215 proteins during neuronal morphogenesis and migration, and this impact on tubulin activity at the molecular level scales with the impact at the cellular and tissue levels.
