Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a disease caused by the mutations of Survival Motor Neuron 1 (SMN1) gene, is the most common genetic cause of infant mortality. Humans have two copies of the SMN gene, the telomeric SMN1, which encodes for a full-length form (FL-SMN), and the centromeric SMN2, which encodes primarily for a rapidly-degraded truncated form (SMN 7) as well as the full-length form. In the most severe form, Type 1 SMA, there are 1 or 2 copies of the SMN2 gene, and patients die within 2 years of age due to respiratory failure. Patients with more copies of the SMN2 gene, however, manifest a less severe form of SMA (Type III SMA). SMA occurs due to decreased amount of FL-SMN protein in spinal motor neurons. Therefore, much of the effort for therapeutic interventions in SMA has focused on increasing the level of FL-SMN protein products. Our preliminary results show that SMN is found in a complex containing an E3 ubiquitin ligase the Anaphase- Promoting Complex (APC) and HuD, a RNA binding protein. The APC targets proteins to the proteasome for degradation whereas HuD stabilizes mRNAs. Furthermore, evidence indicates a role for APC in neuronal survival, axonal growth, and synaptic function, and HuD is involved in the maturation and maintenance of neurons. We also know from previous studies that SMN may be necessary for the transport, stability and/or translation of certain mRNAs in neurites. These data together prompted us to formulate a working model in which: 1) ubiquitination by APC regulates the stability and/or function of SMN or other members of the SMN complex and 2) the putative HuD-SMN-associated mRNAs in axons are important for the growth and survival of motor neurons. In the first part of this application, we will investigate the role of APC in regulation of SMN stability and function. We will first characterize the interaction between APC and SMN in neurons. Then, we will investigate the effect of inhibiting the APC-SMN interaction on the function, stability, localization, of SMN protein. In the second part, we will focus on one axonal SMN target mRNA which is likely to play a role in axon outgrowth. Since there is a tight correlation between the amount of FL-SMN and the severity of disease, understanding the interaction between APC and SMN as well as elucidating the downstream targets of SMN will provide important insights into the biology of SMA and has the potential to generate new treatment options for this disease.

Public Health Relevance

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the leading genetic cause of infant deaths in the United States. We propose to investigate the cellular mechanisms of this disease using state of the art proteomics and RNA analysis. Understanding these cellular mechanisms may ultimately be important for designing therapies for SMA.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01NS066973-01A1
Application #
7992686
Study Section
Cellular and Molecular Biology of Neurodegeneration Study Section (CMND)
Program Officer
Porter, John D
Project Start
2010-05-01
Project End
2015-04-30
Budget Start
2010-05-01
Budget End
2011-04-30
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2010
Total Cost
$441,577
Indirect Cost
Name
Children's Hospital Boston
Department
Type
DUNS #
076593722
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02115
Nawabi, Homaira; Belin, Stephane; Cartoni, Romain et al. (2015) Doublecortin-Like Kinases Promote Neuronal Survival and Induce Growth Cone Reformation via Distinct Mechanisms. Neuron 88:704-19
Belin, Stephane; Nawabi, Homaira; Wang, Chen et al. (2015) Injury-induced decline of intrinsic regenerative ability revealed by quantitative proteomics. Neuron 86:1000-1014
Singh, Sasha A; Winter, Dominic; Kirchner, Marc et al. (2014) Co-regulation proteomics reveals substrates and mechanisms of APC/C-dependent degradation. EMBO J 33:385-99
Prabakaran, Sudhakaran; Hemberg, Martin; Chauhan, Ruchi et al. (2014) Quantitative profiling of peptides from RNAs classified as noncoding. Nat Commun 5:5429
Serang, Oliver; Paulo, Joao; Steen, Hanno et al. (2013) A non-parametric cutout index for robust evaluation of identified proteins. Mol Cell Proteomics 12:807-12
Pe'er, Tal; Lahmi, Roxane; Sharaby, Yaara et al. (2013) Gas2l3, a novel constriction site-associated protein whose regulation is mediated by the APC/C Cdh1 complex. PLoS One 8:e57532
Froehlich, John W; Dodds, Eric D; Wilhelm, Mathias et al. (2013) A classifier based on accurate mass measurements to aid large scale, unbiased glycoproteomics. Mol Cell Proteomics 12:1017-25
Serang, Oliver; Froehlich, John W; Muntel, Jan et al. (2013) SweetSEQer, simple de novo filtering and annotation of glycoconjugate mass spectra. Mol Cell Proteomics 12:1735-40
Serang, Oliver; Cansizoglu, A Ertugrul; Kall, Lukas et al. (2013) Nonparametric Bayesian evaluation of differential protein quantification. J Proteome Res 12:4556-65
Serang, Oliver (2013) Concerning the accuracy of Fido and parameter choice. Bioinformatics 29:412

Showing the most recent 10 out of 14 publications