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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is marked by fasciculation, spasticity and progressive weakness of muscles, and results in difficulty speaking, swallowing and breathing. ALS is fatal, usually leading to death within a few years from diagnosis, although more slowly progressing forms of the disease exist.
Expanded intronic G4C2 repeats in C9orf72 cause ALS/FTD. GR dipeptide repeats produced in C9orf72 ALS/FTD co-aggregate with Kap2 in neurons, affecting survival. Upregulating Kapβ2 may mitigate neurotoxicity, a potential therapy for C9orf72-ALS/FTD.
Mutations in profilin 1 (PFN1), which modulates actin dynamics, are associated with ALS. Here the authors show that expression of ALS-PFN1 is sufficient to induce deficits in human microglia-like cells, including impaired phagocytosis and lipid metabolism, and that gain-of-function interactions between ALS-PFN1 and PI3P may underlie these deficits.
This review focuses on recent advances in on-chip platforms for patient-like in vitro modeling of the pathology of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases as well as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The authors advocate for broader usage of these human-relevant models in the academic and pharmaceutical fields.
Genetic mutations are found in only 15% of sporadic ALS. Here, authors identify PCDHA9 as a candidate ALS gene and elucidate detailed underlying pathogenesis using mice with Pcdhα9 mutations that develop typical ALS phenotype and hallmark pathology.
C9orf72 ALS/FTD polyGR and polyPR knock-in mice show cortical hyperexcitability and motor neuron loss accompanied by an increase in extracellular matrix proteins in the spinal cord that is conserved in patient iPS cell-derived neurons and is neuroprotective.
Around 10% of individuals with frontotemporal lobar dementia have amyloid filament inclusions that lack tau and TDP-43 and were thought to contain the protein FUS, but are found instead to contain the FUS homologue TAF15.
Two new studies have provided important mechanistic insights into TDP-43 pathology, a hallmark of neurodegenerative conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal lobar degeneration.
