High resolution time-course mapping of early transcriptomic, molecular and cellular phenotypes in Huntington's disease CAG knock-in mice across multiple genetic backgrounds
HUMAN MOLECULAR GENETICS
Authors: Ament, Seth A.; Pearl, Jocelynn R.; Grindeland, Andrea; Claire, Jason St.; Earls, John C.; Kovalenko, Marina; Gillis, Tammy; Mysore, Jayalakshmi; Gusella, James F.; Lee, Jong-Min; Kwak, Seung; Howland, David; Lee, Min Young; Baxter, David; Scherler, Kelsey; Wang, Kai; Geman, Donald; Carroll, Jeffrey B.; MacDonald, Marcy E.; Carlson, George; Wheeler, Vanessa C.; Price, Nathan D.; Hood, Leroy E.
Abstract
Huntington's disease is a dominantly inherited neurodegenerative disease caused by the expansion of a CAG repeat in the HTT gene. In addition to the length of the CAG expansion, factors such as genetic background have been shown to contribute to the age at onset of neurological symptoms. A central challenge in understanding the disease progression that leads from the HD mutation to massive cell death in the striatum is the ability to characterize the subtle and early functional consequences of the CAG expansion longitudinally. We used dense time course sampling between 4 and 20 postnatal weeks to characterize early transcriptomic, molecular and cellular phenotypes in the striatum of six distinct knock-in mouse models of the HD mutation. We studied the effects of the Htt(Q111) allele on the C57BL/6J, CD-1, FVB/NCr1, and 129S2/SvPasCrl genetic backgrounds, and of two additional alleles, Htt(Q92) and Htt(Q50), on the C57BL/6J background. We describe the emergence of a transcriptomic signature in Htt(Q111/+) mice involving hundreds of differentially expressed genes and changes in diverse
NKp46 Receptor-Mediated Interferon-gamma Production by Natural Killer Cells Increases Fibronectin 1 to Alter Tumor Architecture and Control Metastasis
IMMUNITY
Authors: Glasner, Ariella; Levi, Assi; Enk, Jonatan; Isaacson, Batya; Viukov, Sergey; Orlanski, Shari; Scope, Alon; Neuman, Tzahi; Enk, Claes D.; Hanna, Jacob H.; Sexl, Veronika; Jonjic, Stipan; Seliger, Barbara; Zitvogel, Laurence; Mandelboim, Ofer
Abstract
Natural killer (NK) cells are innate lymphoid cells, and their presence within human tumors correlates with better prognosis. However, the mechanisms by which NK cells control tumors in vivo are unclear. Here, we used reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) imaging in humans and in mice to visualize tumor architecture in vivo. We demonstrated that signaling via the NK cell receptor NKp46 (human) and Ncr1 (mouse) induced interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) secretion from intratumoral NK cells. NKp46-and Ncr1-mediated IFN-gamma production led to the increased expression of the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin 1 (FN1) in the tumors, which altered primary tumor architecture and resulted in decreased metastases formation. Injection of IFN-gamma into tumor-bearing mice or transgenic overexpression of Ncr1 in NK cells in mice resulted in decreased metastasis formation. Thus, we have defined a mechanism of NK cell-mediated control of metastases in vivo that may help develop NK cell-dependent cancer therapies.