Jones, Emma;
Hill, Elizabeth;
Linehan, Jacqueline;
Nazari, Tamsin;
Caulder, Adam;
Codner, Gemma F;
Hutchison, Marie;
... Mead, Simon; + view all
(2024)
Characterisation and prion transmission study in mice with genetic reduction of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease risk gene Stx6.
Neurobiology of Disease
, 190
, Article 106363. 10.1016/j.nbd.2023.106363.
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Abstract
Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), the most common human prion disease, is thought to occur when the cellular prion protein (PrPC) spontaneously misfolds and assembles into prion fibrils, culminating in fatal neurodegeneration. In a genome-wide association study of sCJD, we recently identified risk variants in and around the gene STX6, with evidence to suggest a causal increase of STX6 expression in disease-relevant brain regions. STX6 encodes syntaxin-6, a SNARE protein primarily involved in early endosome to trans-Golgi network retrograde transport. Here we developed and characterised a mouse model with genetic depletion of Stx6 and investigated a causal role of Stx6 expression in mouse prion disease through a classical prion transmission study, assessing the impact of homozygous and heterozygous syntaxin-6 knockout on disease incubation periods and prion-related neuropathology. Following inoculation with RML prions, incubation periods in Stx6-/- and Stx6+/- mice differed by 12 days relative to wildtype. Similarly, in Stx6-/- mice, disease incubation periods following inoculation with ME7 prions also differed by 12 days. Histopathological analysis revealed a modest increase in astrogliosis in ME7-inoculated Stx6-/- animals and a variable effect of Stx6 expression on microglia activation, however no differences in neuronal loss, spongiform change or PrP deposition were observed at endpoint. Importantly, Stx6-/- mice are viable and fertile with no gross impairments on a range of neurological, biochemical, histological and skeletal structure tests. Our results provide some support for a pathological role of Stx6 expression in prion disease, which warrants further investigation in the context of prion disease but also other neurodegenerative diseases considering syntaxin-6 appears to have pleiotropic risk effects in progressive supranuclear palsy and Alzheimer's disease.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Characterisation and prion transmission study in mice with genetic reduction of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease risk gene Stx6 |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.nbd.2023.106363 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbd.2023.106363 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Incubation period, Prion disease, SNARE, Syntaxin-6 |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Institute of Prion Diseases UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Institute of Prion Diseases > MRC Prion Unit at UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10182404 |
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