Abstract
Mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) progression; however, the mitochondrial factors underlying the development of PD symptoms remain unclear. One candidate is CR6-interacting factor1 (CRIF1), which controls translation and membrane insertion of 13 mitochondrial proteins involved in oxidative phosphorylation. Here, we found that CRIF1 mRNA and protein expression were significantly reduced in postmortem brains of elderly PD patients compared to normal controls. To evaluate the effect of Crif1 deficiency, we produced mice lacking the Crif1 gene in dopaminergic neurons (DAT-CRIF1-KO mice). From 5 weeks of age, DAT-CRIF1-KO mice began to show decreased dopamine production with progressive neuronal degeneration in the nigral area. At ~10 weeks of age, they developed PD-like behavioral deficits, including gait abnormalities, rigidity, and resting tremor. L-DOPA, a medication used to treat PD, ameliorated these defects at an early stage, although it was ineffective in older mice. Taken together, the observation that CRIF1 expression is reduced in human PD brains and deletion of CRIF1 in dopaminergic neurons leads to early-onset PD with stepwise PD progression support the conclusion that CRIF1-mediated mitochondrial function is important for the survival of dopaminergic neurons.
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Change history
02 October 2023
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-023-02254-1
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean Government (MSIP) (2017R1A5A2015385, 2022R1A2C2002756 to JYH; 2022R1A2C3013280, RS-2023-00266872 to DK; 2020M3E5D9079742, 2022R1A2C3013138 to HR); a grant from the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health &Welfare, Republic of Korea (HR22C1734 to JYH); Hong Kong Research Grants Council Theme-based Research Scheme (T13-607/12R) grant to SKC; an NIH Grant (R01NS109537 to JL) and a KIST Grant (2E32233 to HR).
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JYH, AHP, HR, GRK and DK designed the research; JYH, AHP, MJL, YHH, YKK, YSJ, SKC, MJR, SYC, SJH and SJK performed experiments; JL collected human tissue; SYS, HJS and TDS contributed to the preparation of research tools and sampling; JMK, OH, SKC, MJR and MS analyzed data; JYH, AHP, MJL, HR, GRK, SKC and DK wrote the paper.
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Heo, J.Y., Park, A.H., Lee, M.J. et al. Crif1 deficiency in dopamine neurons triggers early-onset parkinsonism. Mol Psychiatry 28, 4474–4484 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-023-02234-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-023-02234-5