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Dorion MF, Yaqubi M, Senkevich K, Kieran NW, MacDonald A, Chen CXQ, Luo W, Wallis A, Shlaifer I, Hall JA, Dudley RWR, Glass IA, Stratton JA, Fon EA, Bartels T, Antel JP, Gan-or Z, Durcan TM, Healy LM. MerTK is a mediator of alpha-synuclein fibril uptake by human microglia. Brain 2024; 147:427-443. [PMID: 37671615 PMCID: PMC10834256 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awad298] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/08/2023] [Revised: 07/26/2023] [Accepted: 08/29/2023] [Indexed: 09/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Mer tyrosine kinase (MerTK) is a receptor tyrosine kinase that mediates non-inflammatory, homeostatic phagocytosis of diverse types of cellular debris. Highly expressed on the surface of microglial cells, MerTK is of importance in brain development, homeostasis, plasticity and disease. Yet, involvement of this receptor in the clearance of protein aggregates that accumulate with ageing and in neurodegenerative diseases has yet to be defined. The current study explored the function of MerTK in the microglial uptake of alpha-synuclein fibrils which play a causative role in the pathobiology of synucleinopathies. Using human primary and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived microglia, the MerTK-dependence of alpha-synuclein fibril internalization was investigated in vitro. Relevance of this pathway in synucleinopathies was assessed through burden analysis of MERTK variants and analysis of MerTK expression in patient-derived cells and tissues. Pharmacological inhibition of MerTK and siRNA-mediated MERTK knockdown both caused a decreased rate of alpha-synuclein fibril internalization by human microglia. Consistent with the non-inflammatory nature of MerTK-mediated phagocytosis, alpha-synuclein fibril internalization was not observed to induce secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6 or TNF, and downmodulated IL-1β secretion from microglia. Burden analysis in two independent patient cohorts revealed a significant association between rare functionally deleterious MERTK variants and Parkinson's disease in one of the cohorts (P = 0.002). Despite a small upregulation in MERTK mRNA expression in nigral microglia from Parkinson's disease/Lewy body dementia patients compared to those from non-neurological control donors in a single-nuclei RNA-sequencing dataset (P = 5.08 × 10-21), no significant upregulation in MerTK protein expression was observed in human cortex and substantia nigra lysates from Lewy body dementia patients compared to controls. Taken together, our findings define a novel role for MerTK in mediating the uptake of alpha-synuclein fibrils by human microglia, with possible involvement in limiting alpha-synuclein spread in synucleinopathies such as Parkinson's disease. Upregulation of this pathway in synucleinopathies could have therapeutic values in enhancing alpha-synuclein fibril clearance in the brain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marie-France Dorion
- Early Drug Discovery Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Neuroimmunology Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Moein Yaqubi
- Neuroimmunology Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Konstantin Senkevich
- McGill Parkinson Program and Neurodegenerative Diseases Group, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Montreal H3A 0C7, Canada
| | - Nicholas W Kieran
- Neuroimmunology Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Adam MacDonald
- Neuroimmunology Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Carol X Q Chen
- Early Drug Discovery Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Wen Luo
- Early Drug Discovery Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Amber Wallis
- UK Dementia Research Institute, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Irina Shlaifer
- Early Drug Discovery Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Jeffery A Hall
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Roy W R Dudley
- Department of Pediatric Surgery, Division of Neurosurgery, Montreal Children's Hospital, McGill University Health Centers, Montreal H4A 3J1, Canada
| | - Ian A Glass
- Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
| | | | - Jo Anne Stratton
- Neuroimmunology Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Edward A Fon
- Early Drug Discovery Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- McGill Parkinson Program and Neurodegenerative Diseases Group, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Tim Bartels
- UK Dementia Research Institute, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Jack P Antel
- Neuroimmunology Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Ziv Gan-or
- McGill Parkinson Program and Neurodegenerative Diseases Group, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Montreal H3A 0C7, Canada
| | - Thomas M Durcan
- Early Drug Discovery Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Luke M Healy
- Neuroimmunology Unit, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University, Montreal H3A 2B4, Canada
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Dong J, Duchesne A, Bayne AN, Mohamed NV, Yi W, Mathur M, Chen CXQ, You Z, Abdian N, Taylor L, Fon EA, Durcan TM, Trempe JF. An Approach to Measuring Protein Turnover in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Organoids by Mass Spectrometry. Methods 2022; 203:17-27. [PMID: 35331912 DOI: 10.1016/j.ymeth.2022.03.011] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2021] [Revised: 03/15/2022] [Accepted: 03/19/2022] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Patient-derived organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells have emerged as a model for studying human diseases beyond conventional two-dimensional (2D) cell culture. Briefly, these three-dimensional organoids are highly complex, capable of self-organizing, recapitulate cellular architecture, and have the potential to model diseases in complex organs, such as the brain. For example, the hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD) - proteostatic dysfunction leading to the selective death of neurons in the substantia nigra - present a subtle distinction in cell type specificity that is lost in 2D cell culture models. As such, the development of robust methods to study global proteostasis and protein turnover in organoids will remain essential as organoid models evolve. To solve this problem, we have designed a workflow to reproducibly extract proteins from brain organoids, measure global turnover using mass spectrometry, and statistically investigate turnover differences between genotypes. We also provide robust methodology for data filtering and statistical treatment of turnover data. Using human midbrain organoids (hMO) as a model system, our method accurately characterized the half-lives of 773 midbrain proteins. We compared these half-lives both to Parkin knockout hMOs and to previously reported data from primary cell cultures and in vivo models. Overall, this method will facilitate the study of proteostasis in organoid models of human disease and will provide an analytical and statistical framework to measure protein turnover in organoids of all cell types.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jing Dong
- Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics and Centre de Recherche en Biologie Structurale, McGill University, 3655 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1Y6, Canada
| | - Anthony Duchesne
- Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics and Centre de Recherche en Biologie Structurale, McGill University, 3655 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1Y6, Canada
| | - Andrew N Bayne
- Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics and Centre de Recherche en Biologie Structurale, McGill University, 3655 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1Y6, Canada
| | - Nguyen-Vi Mohamed
- Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Wei Yi
- Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Meghna Mathur
- Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Carol X Q Chen
- Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Zhipeng You
- Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Narges Abdian
- Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Lorne Taylor
- Proteomics Platform, Centre for Translational Biology, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, 1001 Bd Décarie, Montréal, Quebec, H4A 3J1, Canada
| | - Edward A Fon
- Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Thomas M Durcan
- Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Jean-François Trempe
- Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics and Centre de Recherche en Biologie Structurale, McGill University, 3655 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, Quebec, H3G 1Y6, Canada; Proteomics Platform, Centre for Translational Biology, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, 1001 Bd Décarie, Montréal, Quebec, H4A 3J1, Canada; Brain Repair and Integrative Neuroscience (BRaIN) Program, Centre for Translational Biology, Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, 1001 Bd Décarie, Montréal, Quebec, H4A 3J1, Canada.
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