Bosco DA, Lemay N, Ko HK, Zhou H, Burke C, Kwiatkowski TJ, Sapp P, McKenna-Yasek D, Brown RH, Hayward LJ. Mutant FUS proteins that cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis incorporate into stress granules.
Hum Mol Genet 2010;
19:4160-75. [PMID:
20699327 DOI:
10.1093/hmg/ddq335]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 390] [Impact Index Per Article: 27.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Mutations in the RNA-binding protein FUS (fused in sarcoma) are linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but the mechanism by which these mutants cause motor neuron degeneration is not known. We report a novel ALS truncation mutant (R495X) that leads to a relatively severe ALS clinical phenotype compared with FUS missense mutations. Expression of R495X FUS, which abrogates a putative nuclear localization signal at the C-terminus of FUS, in HEK-293 cells and in the zebrafish spinal cord caused a striking cytoplasmic accumulation of the protein to a greater extent than that observed for recessive (H517Q) and dominant (R521G) missense mutants. Furthermore, in response to oxidative stress or heat shock conditions in cultures and in vivo, the ALS-linked FUS mutants, but not wild-type FUS, assembled into perinuclear stress granules in proportion to their cytoplasmic expression levels. These findings demonstrate a potential link between FUS mutations and cellular pathways involved in stress responses that may be relevant to altered motor neuron homeostasis in ALS.
Collapse