TY  - JOUR
A1  - Haslinger, Denise
A1  - Waltes, Regina
A1  - Yousaf, Afsheen
A1  - Lindlar, Silvia
A1  - Schneider, Ines
A1  - Lim, Chai K.
A1  - Tsai, Meng-Miao
A1  - Garvalov, Boyan K.
A1  - Acker-Palmer, Amparo
A1  - Krezdorn, Nicolas
A1  - Rotter, Björn
A1  - Acker, Till
A1  - Guillemin, Gilles J.
A1  - Fulda, Simone
A1  - Freitag, Christine M.
A1  - Geburtig-Chiocchetti, Andreas
T1  - Loss of the Chr16p11.2 ASD candidate gene QPRT leads to aberrant neuronal differentiation in the SH-SY5Y neuronal cell model
T2  - Molecular autism
N2  - Background: Altered neuronal development is discussed as the underlying pathogenic mechanism of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Copy number variations of 16p11.2 have recurrently been identified in individuals with ASD. Of the 29 genes within this region, quinolinate phosphoribosyltransferase (QPRT) showed the strongest regulation during neuronal differentiation of SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells. We hypothesized a causal relation between this tryptophan metabolism-related enzyme and neuronal differentiation. We thus analyzed the effect of QPRT on the differentiation of SH-SY5Y and specifically focused on neuronal morphology, metabolites of the tryptophan pathway, and the neurodevelopmental transcriptome.
Methods: The gene dosage-dependent change of QPRT expression following Chr16p11.2 deletion was investigated in a lymphoblastoid cell line (LCL) of a deletion carrier and compared to his non-carrier parents. Expression of QPRT was tested for correlation with neuromorphology in SH-SY5Y cells. QPRT function was inhibited in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells using (i) siRNA knockdown (KD), (ii) chemical mimicking of loss of QPRT, and (iii) complete CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knock out (KO). QPRT-KD cells underwent morphological analysis. Chemically inhibited and QPRT-KO cells were characterized using viability assays. Additionally, QPRT-KO cells underwent metabolite and whole transcriptome analyses. Genes differentially expressed upon KO of QPRT were tested for enrichment in biological processes and co-regulated gene-networks of the human brain.
Results: QPRT expression was reduced in the LCL of the deletion carrier and significantly correlated with the neuritic complexity of SH-SY5Y. The reduction of QPRT altered neuronal morphology of differentiated SH-SY5Y cells. Chemical inhibition as well as complete KO of the gene were lethal upon induction of neuronal differentiation, but not proliferation. The QPRT-associated tryptophan pathway was not affected by KO. At the transcriptome level, genes linked to neurodevelopmental processes and synaptic structures were affected. Differentially regulated genes were enriched for ASD candidates, and co-regulated gene networks were implicated in the development of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, and the amygdala.
Conclusions: In this study, QPRT was causally related to in vitro neuronal differentiation of SH-SY5Y cells and affected the regulation of genes and gene networks previously implicated in ASD. Thus, our data suggest that QPRT may play an important role in the pathogenesis of ASD in Chr16p11.2 deletion carriers.
KW  - Autism
KW  - 16p11.2
KW  - Quinolinate phosphoribosyltransferase
KW  - Quinolinic acid
KW  - Kynurenine
KW  - CRISPR/Cas9
KW  - Sholl analysis
Y1  - 2018
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/48622
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-486222
SN  - 2040-2392
N1  - Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
VL  - 9
IS  - Art. 56
SP  - 1
EP  - 17
PB  - BioMed Central
CY  - London
ER  -