Concordant Signaling Pathways Produced by Pesticide Exposure in Mice Correspond to Pathways Identified in Human Parkinson's Disease

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease in which the etiology of 90 percent of the patients is unknown. Pesticide exposure is a major risk factor for PD, and paraquat (PQ), pyridaben (PY) and maneb (MN) are amongst the most widely used pesticides. We studied mRNA expression using transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) in the ventral midbrain (VMB) and striatum (STR) of PQ, PY and paraquat+maneb (MNPQ) treated mice, followed by pathway analysis. We found concordance of signaling pathways between the three pesticide models in both the VMB and STR as well as concordance in these two brain areas. The concordant signaling pathways with relevance to PD pathogenesis were e.g. axonal guidance signaling, Wnt/β-catenin signaling, as well as pathways not previously linked to PD, e.g. basal cell carcinoma, human embryonic stem cell pluripotency and role of macrophages, fibroblasts and endothelial cells in rheumatoid arthritis. Human PD pathways previously identified by expression analysis, concordant with VMB pathways identified in our study were axonal guidance signaling, Wnt/β-catenin signaling, IL-6 signaling, ephrin receptor signaling, TGF-β signaling, PPAR signaling and G-protein coupled receptor signaling. Human PD pathways concordant with the STR pathways in our study were Wnt/β-catenin signaling, axonal guidance signaling and G-protein coupled receptor signaling. Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor delta (Ppard) and G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) were common genes in VMB and STR identified by network analysis. In conclusion, the pesticides PQ, PY and MNPQ elicit common signaling pathways in the VMB and STR in mice, which are concordant with known signaling pathways identified in human PD, suggesting that these pathways contribute to the pathogenesis of idiopathic PD. The analysis of these networks and pathways may therefore lead to improved understanding of disease pathogenesis, and potential novel therapeutic targets.

Relevance of TNBS-Colitis in Rats: A Methodological Study with Endoscopic, Histologic and Transcriptomic Characterization and Correlation to IBD

“…Genes involved in fibrogenesis and stricture formation [54], [55], including collagen type I alpha (COL1A1), matrix metallopeptidase 3 (MMP3) and TIMP metallopeptidase inhibitor 1 and 2 (TIMP1 and TIMP2) are examples thereof. These findings are consistent with other comparative assessments of human disease and animal models [56], [57]. Our group has shown that the REG family proteins and CXCL10 are up-regulated in IBD [58], [59].…”

Pathogenic LRRK2 variants are gain-of-function mutations that enhance LRRK2-mediated repression of β-catenin signaling

“…Furthermore, Wnt signalling is vital for adult neurogenesis [70] and for the normal function of mature neurones [71, 72]. Since the neuroprotective capacity of canonical Wnt signalling is also well described [27, 71, 73] and altered Wnt signalling has already been reported in the brains of PD patients and model animals [74–76], modifying Wnt activity is evidently a plausible therapeutic strategy for PD.…”

Alterations in mitochondrial dynamics induced by tebufenpyrad and pyridaben in a dopaminergic neuronal cell culture model

“…But a recent study has reported that pyridaben exposure induced a 24% TH neuronal loss in the substantia nigra (SN) of mice. The authors also performed an RNAseq analysis and reported that mice exposed to certain pesticides exhibited gene expression patterns bearing significant correspondence to pathways that were well-known in human PD cases (Gollamudi et al, 2012). The results reported above have important implications about the neurotoxicological effects that tebufenpyrad and pyridaben might have on animal and human dopaminergic neuronal systems.…”