TY - JOUR
T1 - Sex-dependent effects of chromogranin B P413L allelic variant as disease modifier in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
AU - Ohta, Yasuyuki
AU - Soucy, Genevieve
AU - Phaneuf, Daniel
AU - Audet, Jean Nicolas
AU - Gros-Louis, François
AU - Rouleau, Guy A.
AU - Blasco, Hélène
AU - Corcia, Philippe
AU - Andersen, Peter M.
AU - Nordin, Frida
AU - Yamashita, Toru
AU - Abe, Koji
AU - Julien, Jean Pierre
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank all the patients for their participation in the study. We thank Dr. Makoto Urushitani, Christine Bareil, Satsuki Kametaka and Dr. Zhuoran Sun for advices and technical assistance. This work was supported by the Muscular Dystrophy Association (USA), Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and partly by Grand-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) 2529320216, (C) 24591263, Challenging Research 24659651, and Grants-Aid from the Research Committees (Mizusawa H, Nakano I, Nishizawa M, Sasaki H, and Aoki M) from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. J.-P. J., F.G.L. and G.A.R. hold Canada Research Chair. Funding to pay the Open Access publication charges for this article was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Recent genetic studies yielded conflicting results regarding a role for the variant chromogranin B (CHGB)P413L allele as a disease modifier in ALS. Moreover, potential deleterious effects of the CHGBP413L variant in ALS pathology have not been investigated. Here we report that in transfected cultured cells, the variant CHGBL413 protein exhibited aberrant properties including mislocalization, failure to interact with mutant superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) and defective secretion. The CHGBL413 transgene in SOD1G37R mice precipitated disease onset and pathological changes related to misfolded SOD1 specifically in female mice. However, the CHGBL413 variant also slowed down disease progression in SOD1G37R mice, which is in line with a very slow disease progression that we report for a Swedish woman with ALS who is carrier of two mutant SOD1D90A alleles and two variant CHGBP413L and CHGBR458Q alleles. In contrast, overexpression of the common CHGBP413 allele in SOD1G37R mice did not affect disease onset but significantly accelerated disease progression and pathological changes. As in transgenic mice, the CHGBP413L allele conferred an earlier ALS disease onset in women of Japanese and French Canadian origins with less effect in men. Evidence is presented that the sex-dependent effects of CHGBL413 allelic variant in ALS may arise from enhanced neuronal expression of CHGB in females because of a sex-determining region Y element in the gene promoter. Thus, our results suggest that CHGB variants may act as modifiers of onset and progression in some ALS populations and especially in females because of higher expression levels compared to males.
AB - Recent genetic studies yielded conflicting results regarding a role for the variant chromogranin B (CHGB)P413L allele as a disease modifier in ALS. Moreover, potential deleterious effects of the CHGBP413L variant in ALS pathology have not been investigated. Here we report that in transfected cultured cells, the variant CHGBL413 protein exhibited aberrant properties including mislocalization, failure to interact with mutant superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) and defective secretion. The CHGBL413 transgene in SOD1G37R mice precipitated disease onset and pathological changes related to misfolded SOD1 specifically in female mice. However, the CHGBL413 variant also slowed down disease progression in SOD1G37R mice, which is in line with a very slow disease progression that we report for a Swedish woman with ALS who is carrier of two mutant SOD1D90A alleles and two variant CHGBP413L and CHGBR458Q alleles. In contrast, overexpression of the common CHGBP413 allele in SOD1G37R mice did not affect disease onset but significantly accelerated disease progression and pathological changes. As in transgenic mice, the CHGBP413L allele conferred an earlier ALS disease onset in women of Japanese and French Canadian origins with less effect in men. Evidence is presented that the sex-dependent effects of CHGBL413 allelic variant in ALS may arise from enhanced neuronal expression of CHGB in females because of a sex-determining region Y element in the gene promoter. Thus, our results suggest that CHGB variants may act as modifiers of onset and progression in some ALS populations and especially in females because of higher expression levels compared to males.
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U2 - 10.1093/hmg/ddw304
DO - 10.1093/hmg/ddw304
M3 - Article
C2 - 28175304
AN - SCOPUS:85014869421
VL - 25
SP - 4771
EP - 4786
JO - Human Molecular Genetics
JF - Human Molecular Genetics
SN - 0964-6906
IS - 21
ER -