Synucleinopathies, including Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, are common aging-dependent neurodegenerative diseases associated with neuronal aggregation of a-synuclein. An in vivo rat synucleinopathy model delineated early key pathological changes preceding overt neuronal degeneration. These may represent critical pathophysiological changes potentially causal to disease progression, without being confounded by cell death-related events. I hypothesized that these pathways perturbed in the pre-degenerative stages are important contributors to the pathogenesis of synucleinopathies, and will yield novel targets for disease-modifying therapies. Two complementary in vitro models will be used to determine the relationships between these pre-degenerative changes and a-synuclein toxicity. Over expressing human a-syn in yeast recapitulates cellular defects seen in the human synucleinopathies, yielding insights into the path biology caused by a-syn misfolding and creating a model amenable to high throughput analyses. Taking advantage of unparalleled genetic tools available, I will use the yeast model to establish causal relationships between these changes and a-syn-dependent cytotoxicity, and to investigate the mechanistic underpinning of such connections when established. Second, I will characterize induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells derived from familial a-synucleinopathy patients including the A53T and multiplication (duplication, triplication) mutations of a-syn. The recent groundbreaking discovery enabling reprogramming of human somatic cells into pluripotent iPS cells offers an unprecedented approach to the study of human diseases. These cells can be robustly differentiated into neurons, providing a highly relevant context in which to validate and extend findings from the rat AAV and yeast synucleinopathy models, and to generate novel pre-degenerative changes using unbiased gene expression profiling. The multi- model approach using yeast, rat and human iPS cells will facilitate the validation of important pathogenetic pathways, offering novel therapeutic targets for drug development and other therapeutic strategies.

Public Health Relevance

Synucleinopathies are common aging-dependent neurodegenerative diseases associated with neuronal aggregation of a-synuclein, including Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. An in vivo rat synucleinopathy model delineated early key pathological changes preceding overt neuronal degeneration, potentially yielding novel therapeutic targets. Two complementary in vitro models will be used to address the relationships between these pre-degenerative changes and a-synuclein toxicity. First, with powerful genetic tools, a yeast model of synucleinopathy will be used to establish causal relationships and delineate mechanisms of these changes in mediating a- synuclein toxicity. Second, yeast findings will be validated in human neurons derived from patients with familial synucleinopathies using the induced pluripotent stem cell technology. Gene expression profiling in these neurons will reveal new disease-relevant changes in this novel human disease model.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Scientist Development Award - Research & Training (K01)
Project #
5K01AG038546-04
Application #
8681289
Study Section
Neuroscience of Aging Review Committee (NIA)
Program Officer
Wise, Bradley C
Project Start
2011-08-15
Project End
2016-06-30
Budget Start
2014-07-01
Budget End
2015-06-30
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02142
Chung, Chee Yeun; Khurana, Vikram; Yi, Song et al. (2017) In Situ Peroxidase Labeling and Mass-Spectrometry Connects Alpha-Synuclein Directly to Endocytic Trafficking and mRNA Metabolism in Neurons. Cell Syst 4:242-250.e4
Khurana, Vikram; Peng, Jian; Chung, Chee Yeun et al. (2017) Genome-Scale Networks Link Neurodegenerative Disease Genes to ?-Synuclein through Specific Molecular Pathways. Cell Syst 4:157-170.e14
Tardiff, Daniel F; Khurana, Vikram; Chung, Chee Yeun et al. (2014) From yeast to patient neurons and back again: powerful new discovery platform. Mov Disord 29:1231-40
Caraveo, Gabriela; Auluck, Pavan K; Whitesell, Luke et al. (2014) Calcineurin determines toxic versus beneficial responses to ?-synuclein. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 111:E3544-52
Tardiff, Daniel F; Jui, Nathan T; Khurana, Vikram et al. (2013) Yeast reveal a ""druggable"" Rsp5/Nedd4 network that ameliorates ?-synuclein toxicity in neurons. Science 342:979-83
Chung, Chee Yeun; Khurana, Vikram; Auluck, Pavan K et al. (2013) Identification and rescue of ?-synuclein toxicity in Parkinson patient-derived neurons. Science 342:983-7