Hypoxic cell death kills more people in the USA than any other cause;stroke is the leading cause of disability. However, no therapy has shown benefit against hypoxic cell death. A variety of forward genetic screens in C. elegans have implicated protein homeostasis as critical to survival after hypoxia. Using complementary approaches in C. elegans and mouse hippocampal neurons, we propose to define proteostasis mechanisms that can protect neurons from hypoxic cellular injury.
Our specific aims are: 1) Determine the role of protein homeostasis in cell autonomous and non-autonomous, early and delayed, neuronal cell death. Utilizing a mutant where all cells are protected from hypoxic injury, we will selectively express a wild type copy of this gene in neurons and myocytes. We will utilize these unique transgenic strains and others that we will generate along with cell-specific RNAi to examine the role of protein homeostasis in cell autonomous, non-autonomous, early, and delayed, neuronal death. 2) Define the mechanisms whereby translation factor knockdown increase survival from hypoxic injury. Translational suppression has been associated with hypoxia resistance in a variety of experimental paradigms. The mechanism whereby translational suppression protects from hypoxic injury has been nearly universally attributed to a decrease in oxygen consumption. We have performed a survey of the effect of knockdown of various translation factors on C. elegans organismal survival after hypoxia and correlated the level of hypoxia resistances with oxygen consumption, resistance to perturbation of protein homeostasis, and other traits. The correlation of hypoxia resistance with oxygen consumption was weak and correlated strongly only with resistance to perturbations in protein homeostasis. This argues that translational suppression protects from hypoxic injury by improving protein homeostasis. Focusing on established proteostasis pathways, we propose to utilize a variety of C. elegans genetic reagents to define the mechanisms whereby translational suppression protects from hypoxia. 3) Examine the ability of protein homeostasis compounds to protect from immediate and delayed hypoxic injury of mouse hippocampal and C. elegans neurons. We have strong evidence from RNAi knockdown experiments that modulation of proteostasis before oxygen/glucose deprivation is an important determinant of survival of mouse hippocampal neurons. We now propose to determine whether and, if so, when proteostasis compounds are neuroprotective. We will test various categories of chemical proteostasis regulators. We will add the drugs before or after hypoxia and measure if and when these compounds can provide neuroprotection in primary mouse hippocampal neuronal cultures and in our C. elegans neuronal cell death models generated in specific aim 1.

Public Health Relevance

Hypoxic cell death in the form of stroke and myocardial infarction is the number one cause of mortality in the US. Through the research aims proposed here, new genes and pathways that control survival of cells after hypoxic injury may be delineated. These discoveries could lead to the development of therapies for this devastating group of diseases.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
2R01NS045905-07A1
Application #
8387604
Study Section
Neural Oxidative Metabolism and Death Study Section (NOMD)
Program Officer
Corriveau, Roderick A
Project Start
2003-12-01
Project End
2017-08-31
Budget Start
2012-09-01
Budget End
2013-08-31
Support Year
7
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$421,379
Indirect Cost
$144,156
Name
Washington University
Department
Anesthesiology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
068552207
City
Saint Louis
State
MO
Country
United States
Zip Code
63130
Sun, Chun-Ling; Zhang, Huiliang; Liu, Meng et al. (2017) A screen for protective drugs against delayed hypoxic injury. PLoS One 12:e0176061
Kaufman, Daniel M; Wu, Xia; Scott, Barbara A et al. (2017) Ageing and hypoxia cause protein aggregation in mitochondria. Cell Death Differ 24:1730-1738
Mao, X R; Kaufman, D M; Crowder, C M (2016) Nicotinamide mononucleotide adenylyltransferase promotes hypoxic survival by activating the mitochondrial unfolded protein response. Cell Death Dis 7:e2113
Kaufman, Daniel M; Crowder, C Michael (2015) Mitochondrial Proteostatic Collapse Leads to Hypoxic Injury. Curr Biol 25:2171-6
Sun, C-L; Kim, E; Crowder, C M (2014) Delayed innocent bystander cell death following hypoxia in Caenorhabditis elegans. Cell Death Differ 21:557-67
Scott, Barbara; Sun, Chun-Ling; Mao, Xianrong et al. (2013) Role of oxygen consumption in hypoxia protection by translation factor depletion. J Exp Biol 216:2283-92
Mao, Xianrong R; Crowder, C Michael (2010) Protein misfolding induces hypoxic preconditioning via a subset of the unfolded protein response machinery. Mol Cell Biol 30:5033-42
Mabon, Meghann E; Mao, Xianrong; Jiao, York et al. (2009) Systematic identification of gene activities promoting hypoxic death. Genetics 181:483-96
Anderson, Lori L; Mao, Xianrong; Scott, Barbara A et al. (2009) Survival from hypoxia in C. elegans by inactivation of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. Science 323:630-3
Crowder, C Michael (2009) Cell biology. Ceramides--friend or foe in hypoxia? Science 324:343-4

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