Unravelling the impact of microRNA on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) pathogenesis

Ruepp, Marc-David (25 January 2013). Unravelling the impact of microRNA on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) pathogenesis (Unpublished). In: Swiss RNA Workshop 2013. Bern, CH. 25.01.2013.

ALS is the most common adult neurodegenerative disease that specifically affects upper and lower neurons leading to progressive paralysis and death. There is currently no effective treatment. Thus, identification of the signaling pathways and cellular mediators of ALS remains a major challenge in the search for novel therapeutics.
Recent studies have shown that noncoding RNA molecules have a significant impact on normal CNS development and on causes and progression of human neurological disorders. To investigate the hypothesis that expression of the mutant SOD1 protein, which is one of the genetic causes of ALS, may alter expression of miRNAs thereby contributing to the pathogenesis of familial ALS, we compared miRNA expression in SH-SY5Y expressing either the wild type or the SOD1 protein using small RNA deep-sequencing followed by RT-PCR validation. This strategy allowed us to find a group of up and down regulated miRNAs, which are predicted to play a role in the motorneurons physiology and pathology.
The aim of my work is to understand if these modulators of gene expression may play a causative role in disease onset or progression. To this end I have checked the expression level of these misregulated miRNAs derived from RNA-deep sequencing by qPCR on cDNA derived from ALS mice models at early onset of the disease. Thus, I’m looking for the most up-regulated one even in Periferal Blood Mononuclear Cell (PBMC) of sporadic ALS patients. Furthermore I’m functionally characterizing the most up-regulated miRNAs through the validation of bioinformatic-predicted targets by analyzing endogenous targets levels after microRNA transfection and by UTR-report luciferase assays. Thereafter I’ll analyze the effect of misregulated targets on pathogenesis or progression of ALS by loss of functions or gain of functions experiments, based on the identified up/down-regulation of the specific target by miRNAs.
In the end I would define the mechanisms responsible for the miRNAs level misregulation, by silencing or stimulating the signal transduction pathways putatively involved in miRNA regulation.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Poster)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences (DCBP)

UniBE Contributor:

Ruepp, Marc-David

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 540 Chemistry

Language:

English

Submitter:

Christina Schüpbach

Date Deposited:

05 Aug 2014 14:23

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:36

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/57526

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