Mitochondrial impairment and synaptic dysfunction are associated with neurological defects in iPSCs-derived cortical neurons of MERRF patients

Journal of Biomedical Science

Research

Yu-Ting Wu¹  Jung-Tse Yang¹  Hsiao-Hui Liao¹  Yi-Shing Ma¹  Hui-Yi Tay¹  Yau-Huei Wei² 

[1] Center for Mitochondrial Medicine and Free Radical Research, Changhua Christian Hospital, 50046, Changhua City, Taiwan;Center for Mitochondrial Medicine and Free Radical Research, Changhua Christian Hospital, 50046, Changhua City, Taiwan;Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, 112, Taipei, Taiwan;

关键词: AMPARs;    Disease modeling;    Electrophysiological activity;    Excitatory neurons;    iPSCs;    MERRF syndrome;    mtDNA mutation;    Neurological defect;    Synaptic plasticity;    Synaptophysin;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12929-023-00966-8

 received in 2023-04-25, accepted in 2023-08-08,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMyoclonic epilepsy with ragged-red fibers (MERRF) syndrome is a rare inherited mitochondrial disease mainly caused by the m.8344A > G mutation in mitochondrial tRNALys gene, and usually manifested as complex neurological disorders and muscle weakness. Currently, the pathogenic mechanism of this disease has not yet been resolved, and there is no effective therapy for MERRF syndrome. In this study, MERRF patients-derived iPSCs were used to model patient-specific neurons for investigation of the pathogenic mechanism of neurological disorders in mitochondrial disease.MethodsMERRF patient-derived iPSCs were differentiated into excitatory glutamatergic neurons to unravel the effects of the m.8344A > G mutation on mitochondrial bioenergetic function, neural-lineage differentiation and neuronal function. By the well-established differentiation protocol and electrophysiological activity assay platform, we examined the pathophysiological behaviors in cortical neurons of MERRF patients.ResultsWe have successfully established the iPSCs-derived neural progenitor cells and cortical-like neurons of patients with MERRF syndrome that retained the heteroplasmy of the m.8344A > G mutation from the patients’ skin fibroblasts and exhibited the phenotype of the mitochondrial disease. MERRF neural cells harboring the m.8344A > G mutation exhibited impaired mitochondrial bioenergetic function, elevated ROS levels and imbalanced expression of antioxidant enzymes. Our findings indicate that neural immaturity and synaptic protein loss led to the impairment of neuronal activity and plasticity in MERRF neurons harboring the m.8344A > G mutation. By electrophysiological recordings, we monitored the in vivo neuronal behaviors of MERRF neurons and found that neurons harboring a high level of the m.8344A > G mutation exhibited impairment of the spontaneous and evoked potential-stimulated neuronal activities.ConclusionsWe demonstrated for the first time the link of mitochondrial impairment and synaptic dysfunction to neurological defects through impeding synaptic plasticity in excitatory neurons derived from iPSCs of MERRF patients harboring the m.8344A > G mutation. This study has provided new insight into the pathogenic mechanism of the tRNALys gene mutation of mtDNA, which is useful for the development of a patient-specific iPSCs platform for disease modeling and screening of new drugs to treat patients with MERRF syndrome.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© National Science Council of the Republic of China (Taiwan) 2023

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