Engineered modeling and the secrets of Parkinson's disease

Protein expression in the striatum and cortex regions of the brain for a mouse model of Huntington's disease

Liquid chromatography (LC) coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) and database assignment methods have been used to conduct a large-scale proteome survey of the R6/2 mouse model of Huntington's disease (HD). Although the neuropathological mechanisms of HD are not known, the mutant huntingtin gene that causes the disease is thought to alter gene transcription, leading to a cascade of neurotoxic events. In this report, we have focused on characterizing changes in the brain proteome associated with HD pathophysiology. Differences in the relative abundances of proteins (R6/2 compared to wild type) in brain tissue from the striatum and cortex, two primary loci of dysfunction in HD, were assessed by using a label-free approach based on calibrations to internal standards. In total, assignments were made for approximately 400 proteins. A set of criteria was used to establish 160 high confidence assignments, approximately 30% of which appear to show differences in expression relative to wild type (WT) animals. Many of the proteins that were differentially expressed are known to be associated with neurotransmission and likely play key roles in HD etiology. This study is the first to report that the majority of differentially expressed proteins in the striatum are up-regulated, while the majority of the expressed proteins in the cortex are down-regulated. The differentially expressed proteins identified in this proteomic screen may be potential biomarkers and drug targets for HD and may further our understanding of the disease pathology.

Leptomeningeal cells activate microglia and astrocytes to induce IL-10 production by releasing pro-inflammatory cytokines during systemic inflammation

The leptomeninges covering the surface of the brain parenchyma play the physical role at the cerebrospinal fluid-blood barrier. We report here that leptomeningeal cells may transduce peripheral proinflammatory signals to the central anti-inflammatory response through the activation of glial cells in the brain parenchyma. After adjuvant injection, both microglia and astrocytes in the cerebral cortex localized in the proximity of the leptomeninges were activated. The protein levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) in the cortical extracts were significantly increased at different time after adjuvant injection. The TNF-alpha immunoreactivity was most prominent in the leptomeninges covering astrocytes. On the other hand, the IL-10 immunoreactivity was observed in both activated microglia and astrocytes localized along the leptomeninges. Cultured leptomeningeal cells covering the cerebral cortex released TNF-alpha which was significantly increased by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Upon stimulation with LPS, cultured leptomeningeal cells also secreted interleukin-1beta and interleukin-6 with differential time-courses. When primary cultured rat astrocytes and microglia were treated with the conditioned medium of LPS-activated cultured leptomeningeal cells, the immunoreactivity of IL-10 was markedly increased. These observations strongly suggest that leptomeningeal cells release pro-inflammatory cytokines to activate both microglia and astrocytes during systemic inflammation. The activated astrocytes and microglia may in turn regulate anti-inflammatory response in the brain by providing IL-10.