UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

In vitro prion-like behaviour of TDP-43 in ALS

Smethurst, P; Newcombe, J; Troakes, C; Simone, R; Chen, YR; Patani, R; Sidle, K; (2016) In vitro prion-like behaviour of TDP-43 in ALS. Neurobiology of Disease , 96 pp. 236-247. 10.1016/j.nbd.2016.08.007. Green open access

[thumbnail of Newcombe_1-s2.0-S0969996116301954-main.pdf]
Preview
Text
Newcombe_1-s2.0-S0969996116301954-main.pdf

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most common form of motor neuron disease (MND), and >95% of familial and sporadic cases involve the deposition of insoluble aggregated, phosphorylated and cleaved TDP-43 protein. Accumulating clinical and biological evidence now indicates that ALS bears a number of similarities to the prion diseases, with TDP-43 acting as a misfolded 'prion-like' protein demonstrating similar underlying pathobiology. Here we systematically address the hypothesis that ALS is a prion-like disorder. First we demonstrate that TDP-43 demonstrates seeded polymerisation in vitro directly from both ALS brain and spinal cord. We next show that the seeding of TDP-43 results in the formation of characteristic insoluble, aggregated, and phosphorylated TDP-43 pathology that directly recapitulates the morphological diversity of TDP-43 inclusions detected in ALS patient CNS tissue. We next demonstrate that this reaction can be serially propagated to produce increasing amounts of phosphorylated TDP-43 pathology, and that aggregates can spread from cell to cell in an analogous fashion to that seen in the prion diseases. Finally, we reproduced our findings in a murine motor neuron-like cell line (NSC-34), where the seeding of TDP-43 induces the formation of TDP-43 oligomers and reduced cell viability. These findings may guide therapeutic strategies in this rapidly progressive and invariably fatal disease.

Type: Article
Title: In vitro prion-like behaviour of TDP-43 in ALS
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.nbd.2016.08.007
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbd.2016.08.007
Language: English
Additional information: © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Keywords: ALS, Prion-like disease, Propagation, Protein misfolding, Seeding, TDP-43
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
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Neuroinflammation
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1514556
Downloads since deposit
124Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item