The lysosomal-autophagic pathway is activated by starvation and plays an important role in both cellular clearance and lipid catabolism. However, the transcriptional regulation of this pathway in response to metabolic cues is currently uncharacterized. Here we show that the transcription factor EB (TFEB), a master regulator of lysosomal biogenesis and autophagy, is induced by starvation through an autoregulatory feedback loop and exerts a global transcriptional control on lipid catabolism via PGC1α and PPARα. Thus, during starvation a transcriptional mechanism links the autophagic pathway to cellular energy metabolism. The conservation of this mechanism in Caenorhabditis elegans suggests a fundamental role for TFEB in the evolution of the adaptive response to food deprivation. Viral delivery of TFEB to the liver prevented weight gain and metabolic syndrome in both diet-induced and genetic mouse models of obesity, suggesting a novel therapeutic strategy for disorders of lipid metabolism.

SummaryDirect cell reprogramming enables direct conversion of fibroblasts into functional neurons and oligodendrocytes using a minimal set of cell-lineage-specific transcription factors. This approach is rapid and simple, generating the cell types of interest in one step. However, it remains unknown whether this technology can be applied to convert fibroblasts into astrocytes, the third neural lineage. Astrocytes play crucial roles in neuronal homeostasis, and their dysfunctions contribute to the origin and progression of multiple human diseases. Herein, we carried out a screening using several transcription factors involved in defining the astroglial cell fate and identified NFIA, NFIB, and SOX9 to be sufficient to convert with high efficiency embryonic and postnatal mouse fibroblasts into astrocytes (iAstrocytes). We proved both by gene-expression profiling and functional tests that iAstrocytes are comparable to native brain astrocytes. This protocol can be then employed to generate functional iAstrocytes for a wide range of experimental applications.

Ocular developmental disorders, including the group classified as microphthalmia, anophthalmia, and coloboma (MAC) and inherited retinal dystrophies, collectively represent leading causes of hereditary blindness. Characterized by extreme genetic and clinical heterogeneity, the separate groups share many common genetic causes, in particular relating to pathways controlling retinal and retinal pigment epithelial maintenance. To understand these shared pathways and delineate the overlap between these groups, we investigated the genetic cause of an autosomal dominantly inherited condition of retinal dystrophy and bilateral coloboma, present in varying degrees in a large, five-generation family. By linkage analysis and exome sequencing, we identified a previously undescribed heterozygous mutation, n.37C > T, in the seed region of microRNA-204 (miR-204), which segregates with the disease in all affected individuals. We demonstrated that this mutation determines significant alterations of miR-204 targeting capabilities via in vitro assays, including transcriptome analysis. In vivo injection, in medaka fish (Oryzias latipes), of the mutated miR-204 caused a phenotype consistent with that observed in the family, including photoreceptor alterations with reduced numbers of both cones and rods as a result of increased apoptosis, thereby confirming the pathogenic effect of the n.37C > T mutation. Finally, knockdown assays in medaka fish demonstrated that miR-204 is necessary for normal photoreceptor function. Overall, these data highlight the importance of miR-204 in the regulation of ocular development and maintenance and provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, of its contribution to eye disease, likely through a gain-of-function mechanism.

MicroRNAs play a fundamental role in retinal development and function. To characterise the miRNome of the human retina, we carried out deep sequencing analysis on sixteen individuals. We established the catalogue of retina-expressed miRNAs, determined their relative abundance and found that a small number of miRNAs accounts for almost 90% of the retina miRNome. We discovered more than 3000 miRNA variants (isomiRs), encompassing a wide range of sequence variations, which include seed modifications that are predicted to have an impact on miRNA action. We demonstrated that a seed-modifying isomiR of the retina-enriched miR-124-3p was endowed with different targeting properties with respect to the corresponding canonical form. Moreover, we identified 51 putative novel, retina-specific miRNAs and experimentally validated the expression for nine of them. Finally, a parallel analysis of the human Retinal Pigment Epithelium (RPE)/choroid, two tissues that are known to be crucial for retina homeostasis, yielded notably distinct miRNA enrichment patterns compared to the retina. The generated data are accessible through an ad hoc database. This study is the first to reveal the complexity of the human retina miRNome at nucleotide resolution and constitutes a unique resource to assess the contribution of miRNAs to the pathophysiology of the human retina.

Phosphoinositides (PIs) control fundamental cell processes, and inherited defects of PI kinases or phosphatases cause severe human diseases including Lowe syndrome due to mutations in OCRL that encodes a PI(4,5)P2 5-phosphatase. Here we unveil a lysosomal response to the arrival of autophagosomal cargo where OCRL plays a key role. We identify mitochondrial DNA and TLR9 as the cargo and the receptor that triggers and mediates, respectively, this response. This lysosome-cargo response is required to sustain the autophagic flux and involves a local increase in PI(4,5)P2 that is confined in space and time by OCRL. Depleting or inhibiting OCRL leads to an accumulation of lysosomal PI(4,5)P2, an inhibitor of the calcium channel mucolipin-1 that controls autophagosome-lysosome fusion. Hence, autophagosomes accumulate in OCRL-depleted cells and in the kidneys of Lowe syndrome patients. Importantly, boosting the activity of mucolipin-1 with selective agonists restores the autophagic flux in cells from Lowe syndrome patients.