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Superoxide Dismutase 1 and tgSOD1(G93A) Mouse Spinal Cord Seed Fibrils, Suggesting a Propagative Cell Death Mechanism in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Chia, R; Tattum, MH; Jones, S; Collinge, J; Fisher, EMC; Jackson, GS; (2010) Superoxide Dismutase 1 and tgSOD1(G93A) Mouse Spinal Cord Seed Fibrils, Suggesting a Propagative Cell Death Mechanism in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. PLOS ONE , 5 (5) , Article e10627. 10.1371/journal.pone.0010627. Green open access

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Abstract

Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that specifically affects motor neurons and leads to a progressive and ultimately fatal loss of function, resulting in death typically within 3 to 5 years of diagnosis. The disease starts with a focal centre of weakness, such as one limb, and appears to spread to other parts of the body. Mutations in superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) are known to cause disease and it is generally accepted they lead to pathology not by loss of enzymatic activity but by gain of some unknown toxic function(s). Although different mutations lead to varying tendencies of SOD1 to aggregate, we suggest abnormal proteins share a common misfolding pathway that leads to the formation of amyloid fibrils.Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we demonstrate that misfolding of superoxide dismutase 1 leads to the formation of amyloid fibrils associated with seeding activity, which can accelerate the formation of new fibrils in an autocatalytic cascade. The time limiting event is nucleation to form a stable protein "seed" before a rapid linear polymerisation results in amyloid fibrils analogous to other protein misfolding disorders. This phenomenon was not confined to fibrils of recombinant protein as here we show, for the first time, that spinal cord homogenates obtained from a transgenic mouse model that overexpresses mutant human superoxide dismutase 1 (the TgSOD1(G93A) mouse) also contain amyloid seeds that accelerate the formation of new fibrils in both wildtype and mutant SOD1 protein in vitro.Conclusions/Significance: These findings provide new insights into ALS disease mechanism and in particular a mechanism that could account for the spread of pathology throughout the nervous system. This model of disease spread, which has analogies to other protein misfolding disorders such as prion disease, also suggests it may be possible to design assays for therapeutics that can inhibit fibril propagation and hence, possibly, disease progression.

Type: Article
Title: Superoxide Dismutase 1 and tgSOD1(G93A) Mouse Spinal Cord Seed Fibrils, Suggesting a Propagative Cell Death Mechanism in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010627
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0010627
Language: English
Additional information: © 2010 Chia et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This work was funded by the Brain Research Trust and the UK Medical Research Council. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Keywords: MOTOR-NEURON DEGENERATION, BODY-LIKE INCLUSIONS, TRANSGENIC MICE, FAMILIAL ALS, INTRANUCLEAR INCLUSIONS, DISEASE PROGRESSION, SOD1, MUTATIONS, AGGREGATION, MUTANTS
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
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/146123
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