SUMMARY
Most cases of neurodegenerative disease are sporadic, hindering the use of genetic mouse models to analyze disease mechanisms. Focusing on the motor neuron (MN) disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) we therefore devised a fully humanized co-culture model composed of human adult primary sporadic ALS (sALS) astrocytes and human embryonic stem cell-derived MNs. The model reproduces the cardinal features of human ALS: sALS astrocytes, but not those from control patients, trigger selective death of MNs. The mechanisms underlying this non-cell-autonomous toxicity were investigated in both astrocytes and MNs. Although causal in familial ALS (fALS), SOD1 does not contribute to the toxicity of sALS astrocytes. Death of MNs triggered by either sALS or fALS astrocytes occurs through necroptosis, a form of programmed necrosis involving receptor-interacting protein 1 and the mixed lineage kinase domain-like protein. The necroptotic pathway therefore constitutes a novel potential therapeutic target for this incurable disease.
Summary
Neurodegenerative phenotypes reflect complex, time-dependent molecular processes, whose elucidation may reveal neuronal class-specific therapeutic targets. The current focus in neurodegeneration has been on individual genes and pathways. In contrast, we assembled a genome-wide regulatory model (henceforth, interactome), whose unbiased interrogation revealed 23 candidate causal master regulators of neurodegeneration in an in vitro model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), characterized by a loss of spinal motor neurons (MNs). Of these, eight were confirmed as specific MN death drivers in our model of familial ALS, including NF-κB, which has long been considered a pro-survival factor. Through an extensive array of molecular, pharmacological and biochemical approaches we have confirmed that neuronal NF-κB drives the degeneration of MNs in both familial and sporadic models of ALS, thus providing proof-of-principle that regulatory network analysis is a valuable tool for studying cell-specific mechanisms of neurodegeneration.
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