Membrane trafficking in neuronal maintenance and degeneration

Hereditary motor and sensory neuropathies: Understanding molecular pathogenesis could lead to future treatment strategies

Inherited peripheral neuropathies, like many other degenerative disorders, have been challenging to treat. At this point, there is little specific therapy for the inherited neuropathies other than genetic counseling as well as symptomatic treatment and rehabilitation. In the past, ascorbic acid, progesterone antagonists, and subcutaneous neurotrophin-3 (NT3) injections have demonstrated improvement in animal models of CMT 1A, the most common inherited neuropathy, but have failed to translate any effect in humans. Given the difficulty in treatment, it is important to understand the molecular pathogenesis of hereditary neuropathies in order to strategize potential future therapies. The hereditary neuropathies are in an era of molecular insight and over the past 20 years, more than 78 subtypes of Charcot Marie Tooth disease (CMT) have been identified and extensively studied to understand the biological pathways in greater detail. Next generation molecular sequencing has also improved the diagnosis as well as the understanding of CMT. A greater understanding of the molecular pathways will help pave the way to future therapeutics of CMT. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Neuromuscular Diseases: Pathology and Molecular Pathogenesis.

Neuronal signaling through endocytosis

The distinctive morphology of neurons, with complex dendritic arbors and extensive axons, presents spatial challenges for intracellular signal transduction. The endosomal system provides mechanisms that enable signaling molecules initiated by extracellular cues to be trafficked throughout the expanse of the neuron, allowing intracellular signals to be sustained over long distances. Therefore endosomes are critical for many aspects of neuronal signaling that regulate cell survival, axonal growth and guidance, dendritic branching, and cell migration. An intriguing characteristic of neuronal signal transduction is that endosomal trafficking enables physiological responses that vary based on the subcellular location of signal initiation. In this review, we will discuss the specialized mechanisms and the functional significance of endosomal signaling in neurons, both during normal development and in disease.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth 2B mutations in rab7 cause dosage-dependent neurodegeneration due to partial loss of function

The small GTPase Rab7 is a key regulator of endosomal maturation in eukaryotic cells. Mutations in rab7 are thought to cause the dominant neuropathy Charcot-Marie-Tooth 2B (CMT2B) by a gain-of-function mechanism. Here we show that loss of rab7, but not overexpression of rab7 CMT2B mutants, causes adult-onset neurodegeneration in a Drosophila model. All CMT2B mutant proteins retain 10–50% function based on quantitative imaging, electrophysiology, and rescue experiments in sensory and motor neurons in vivo. Consequently, expression of CMT2B mutants at levels between 0.5 and 10-fold their endogenous levels fully rescues the neuropathy-like phenotypes of the rab7 mutant. Live imaging reveals that CMT2B proteins are inefficiently recruited to endosomes, but do not impair endosomal maturation. These findings are not consistent with a gain-of-function mechanism. Instead, they indicate a dosage-dependent sensitivity of neurons to rab7-dependent degradation. Our results suggest a therapeutic approach opposite to the currently proposed reduction of mutant protein function.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01064.001

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease is an inherited disorder of the nervous system with symptoms that typically begin in adolescence or early adulthood. The sensory and motor nerves gradually degenerate, causing muscles to waste away and leading to the loss of touch sensation across the body. One subtype of the disease—Charcot-Marie-Tooth 2B—is caused by mutations in a gene called rab7, which codes for a protein that helps to regulate the breakdown of waste proteins inside cells.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth 2B is described as a genetically dominant disorder because all patients have one wild type copy and one mutant copy of the rab7 gene. Overexpression of the mutant gene in cells grown in culture alters many of the signaling pathways inside the cells, but it is unclear whether these alterations cause the pathology seen in the disease.

Now, Cherry et al. have obtained new insights into the genetics of Charcot-Marie-Tooth 2B by creating the first animal model of the disorder. Fruit flies that did not have the rab7 gene in the light-sensitive sensory neurons in their eyes were used to compare normal and mutant cells. While the two cell types were initially similar, the mutant cells gradually degenerated in the adult animal. By contrast, cells that overexpressed a mutant form of the rab7 gene continued to function normally throughout adulthood. Moreover, when mutant Rab7 proteins were introduced into the cells that lacked the rab7 gene, the proteins restored the cells’ sensitivity to light. These results suggest that mutant Rab7 proteins do not cause degeneration; instead, it is the loss of normal Rab7 function that causes problems.

At present, most research into treatment is aimed at finding ways to reduce the activity of mutant Rab7 proteins. However, the work of Cherry et al. suggests that increasing the activity of normal Rab7 proteins—or increasing the activity of alternative pathways that degrade waste proteins—may help to restore nerve function in this, and possibly other, neurodegenerative diseases.

DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01064.002

The synaptic maintenance problem: membrane recycling, Ca2+ homeostasis and late onset degeneration

Most neurons are born with the potential to live for the entire lifespan of the organism. In addition, neurons are highly polarized cells with often long axons, extensively branched dendritic trees and many synaptic contacts. Longevity together with morphological complexity results in a formidable challenge to maintain synapses healthy and functional. This challenge is often evoked to explain adult-onset degeneration in numerous neurodegenerative disorders that result from otherwise divergent causes. However, comparably little is known about the basic cell biological mechanisms that keep normal synapses alive and functional in the first place. How the basic maintenance mechanisms are related to slow adult-onset degeneration in different diseasesis largely unclear. In this review we focus on two basic and interconnected cell biological mechanisms that are required for synaptic maintenance: endomembrane recycling and calcium (Ca²⁺) homeostasis. We propose that subtle defects in these homeostatic processes can lead to late onset synaptic degeneration. Moreover, the same basic mechanisms are hijacked, impaired or overstimulated in numerous neurodegenerative disorders. Understanding the pathogenesis of these disorders requires an understanding of both the initial cause of the disease and the on-going changes in basic maintenance mechanisms. Here we discuss the mechanisms that keep synapses functional over long periods of time with the emphasis on their role in slow adult-onset neurodegeneration.