Numerous neurological diseases and pathologies include, or are hypothesized to include, cellular injury and/or stress as part of the mechanism. Experimental approaches to examine these mechanisms, or even determine if they are indeed at play in certain conditions, are generally limited. They include post-mortem analyses of known stress-response genes/molecules, in vivo pharmacological manipulations which are often systemic, or functional assessments/manipulations which often cannot separate stressed from non-stressed neurons. Ideally, it would be possible to determine, a priori on a cell-by-cell basis, which neurons in a mixed population were exhibiting a cell-stress response. Further, since some stress responses, or at least some components of the stress response, are only transiently expressed even though the overall stress responses may have a cumulative effect on the cell, it would be highly useful to have an a priori indication of which neurons had exhibited a stress response at some point in the past. It would also be highly useful to be able to selectively assess the cellular and inter-cellular functionality of the stressed neurons. To these ends we propose to generate new functional-reporter transgenic mouse lines which will incorporate these characteristics. The reporters will be driven by the promoter region of Activating Transcription Factor 3 (ATF3), a """"""""hub"""""""" protein involved in a variety of cellular stress responses. Generation of the mice will be via BAC-transgenes in order to preserve function of the native ATF3 alleles, which are necessary for certain cellular processes. The BAC transgene with the ATF3 locus will drive production of the light-gated ion channel channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) fused to a fluorescent protein. One model will have the reporters produced in an analogue fashion (i.e., to reflect native ATF3 expression). A second model will use an inducible Cre-recombinase system to permanently """"""""switch-on"""""""" reporter production, thus allowing, at any later time, identification of neurons that previously expressed a stress response. These functional-reporter models will allow offline anatomical assessments, FACS or laser-capture separations, fate-tracing of previously-stressed neurons, and in vivo or in vitro functional assessments specifically of stressed neurons (i.e., those expressing ChR2).

Public Health Relevance

This project is intended to generate research tools, specifically 2 new lines of transgenic mice that will produce functional and anatomical reporters in response to cellular stress. These lines would significantly enhance basic science approaches to understand neurological processes and conditions that have a cellular injury and/or stress component. They would provide capabilities that are currently either highly limited or entirely lacking.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21)
Project #
1R21NS080091-01
Application #
8361031
Study Section
Molecular Neurogenetics Study Section (MNG)
Program Officer
Ludwig, Kip A
Project Start
2012-07-01
Project End
2014-06-30
Budget Start
2012-07-01
Budget End
2013-06-30
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
$240,620
Indirect Cost
$24,790
Name
University of Louisville
Department
Anatomy/Cell Biology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
057588857
City
Louisville
State
KY
Country
United States
Zip Code
40292
Harrison, Benjamin J; Venkat, Gayathri; Lamb, James L et al. (2016) The Adaptor Protein CD2AP Is a Coordinator of Neurotrophin Signaling-Mediated Axon Arbor Plasticity. J Neurosci 36:4259-75
Rau, Kristofer K; Hill, Caitlin E; Harrison, Benjamin J et al. (2016) Cutaneous tissue damage induces long-lasting nociceptive sensitization and regulation of cellular stress- and nerve injury-associated genes in sensory neurons. Exp Neurol 283:413-27
Harrison, Benjamin J; Venkat, Gayathri; Hutson, Thomas et al. (2015) Transcriptional changes in sensory ganglia associated with primary afferent axon collateral sprouting in spared dermatome model. Genom Data 6:249-52
Petruska, Jeffrey C; Barker, Darrell F; Garraway, Sandra M et al. (2014) Organization of sensory input to the nociceptive-specific cutaneous trunk muscle reflex in rat, an effective experimental system for examining nociception and plasticity. J Comp Neurol 522:1048-71
Harrison, Benjamin J; Flight, Robert M; Gomes, Cynthia et al. (2014) IB4-binding sensory neurons in the adult rat express a novel 3' UTR-extended isoform of CaMK4 that is associated with its localization to axons. J Comp Neurol 522:308-36
Rau, Kristofer K; Petruska, Jeffrey C; Cooper, Brian Y et al. (2014) Distinct subclassification of DRG neurons innervating the distal colon and glans penis/distal urethra based on the electrophysiological current signature. J Neurophysiol 112:1392-408
Eteleeb, Abdallah M; Flight, Robert M; Harrison, Benjamin J et al. (2013) An Island-Based Approach for Differential Expression Analysis. ACM Conf Bioinform Comput Biol Biomed Inform (2013) 2013:419-429