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Conditional ATXN2L-Null in Adult Frontal Cortex CamK2a+ Neurons Does Not Cause Cell Death but Restricts Spontaneous Mobility and Affects the Alternative Splicing Pathway

Key, Jana; Almaguer-Mederos, Luis-Enrique; Kandi, Arvind Reddy; Fellenz, Meike; Gispert, Suzana; Köpf, Gabriele; Meierhofer, David; ... Auburger, Georg; + view all (2025) Conditional ATXN2L-Null in Adult Frontal Cortex CamK2a+ Neurons Does Not Cause Cell Death but Restricts Spontaneous Mobility and Affects the Alternative Splicing Pathway. Cells , 14 (19) , Article 1532. 10.3390/cells14191532. Green open access

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Abstract

The Ataxin-2-like (ATXN2L) protein is required to survive embryonic development, as documented in mice with the constitutive absence of the ATXN2L Lsm, LsmAD, and PAM2 domains due to knock-out (KO) of exons 5–8 with a frameshift. Its less abundant paralog, Ataxin-2 (ATXN2), has an extended N-terminus, where a polyglutamine domain is prone to expansions, mediating vulnerability to the polygenic adult motor neuron disease ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) or causing the monogenic neurodegenerative processes of Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 2 (SCA2), depending on larger mutation sizes. Here, we elucidated the physiological function of ATXN2L by deleting the LsmAD and PAM2 motifs via loxP-mediated KO of exons 10–17 with a frameshift. Crossing heterozygous floxed mice with constitutive Cre-deleter animals confirmed embryonic lethality among offspring. Crossing with CamK2a-CreERT2 mice and injecting tamoxifen for conditional deletion achieved chimeric ATXN2L absence in CamK2a-positive frontal cortex neurons and reduced spontaneous horizontal movement. Global proteome profiling of frontal cortex homogenate showed ATXN2L levels decreased to 75% and dysregulations enriched in the alternative splicing pathway. Nuclear proteins with Sm domains are critical to performing splicing; therefore, our data suggest that the Like-Sm (Lsm, LsmAD) domains in ATXN2L serve a role in splice regulation, despite their perinuclear location.

Type: Article
Title: Conditional ATXN2L-Null in Adult Frontal Cortex CamK2a+ Neurons Does Not Cause Cell Death but Restricts Spontaneous Mobility and Affects the Alternative Splicing Pathway
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.3390/cells14191532
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.3390/cells14191532
Language: English
Additional information: © 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Poly(A)-binding protein; ribonucleoproteins; stress granules; open field locomotion; label-free mass spectrometry; NAA38; NSUN2; RPS3; MRPL14; SRSF11
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 Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Department of Neuromuscular Diseases
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10215975
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