Progranulin is neurotrophic in vivo and protects against a mutant TDP-43 induced axonopathy

Angela S. Laird, Annelies van Hoecke, Louis De Muynck, Mieke Timmers, Ludo van den Bosch, Philip Van Damme, Wim Robberecht*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

121 Citations (Scopus)
37 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Mislocalization, aberrant processing and aggregation of TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) is found in the neurons affected by two related diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal lobe dementia (FTLD). These TDP- 43 abnormalities are seen when TDP-43 is mutated, such as in familial ALS, but also in FTLD, caused by null mutations in the progranulin gene. They are also found in many patients with sporadic ALS and FTLD, conditions in which only wild type TDP-43 is present. The common pathological hallmarks and symptomatic cross over between the two diseases suggest that TDP-43 and progranulin may be mechanistically linked. In this study we aimed to address this link by establishing whether overexpression of mutant TDP-43 or knock-down of progranulin in zebrafish embryos results in motor neuron phenotypes and whether human progranulin is neuroprotective against such phenotypes. Mutant TDP-43 (A315T mutation) induced a motor axonopathy characterized by short axonal outgrowth and aberrant branching, similar, but more severe, than that induced by mutant SOD1. Knockdown of the two zebrafish progranulin genes, grna and grnb, produced a substantial decrease in axonal length, with knockdown of grna alone producing a greater decrease in axonal length than grnb. Progranulin overexpression rescued the axonopathy induced by progranulin knockdown. Interestingly, progranulin also rescued the mutant TDP-43 induced axonopathy, whilst it failed to affect the mutant SOD1-induced phenotype. TDP-43 was found to be nuclear in all conditions described. The findings described here demonstrate that progranulin is neuroprotective in vivo and may have therapeutic potential for at least some forms of motor neuron degeneration.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere13368
Pages (from-to)1-7
Number of pages7
JournalPLoS ONE
Volume5
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2010
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) 2010. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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