Neuro-toxicogenomic mapping of TMT induced neurotoxicity using human minibrain reveals associated adverse outcome events

Abstract

Genome-wide transcriptomic interrogation of organoids and 3D tissue models are increasingly used for characterizing drug, toxicity responses and neurodevelopmental disorders. We established here a neuro-toxicogenomic assay by utilizing 'minibrain', a human in vitro 3D brain model system and a low-cost, highly multiplexable RNA-seq methodology (BRB-seq) for screening the effect of trimethyltin chloride (TMT) induced neurotoxicity. We demonstrate that transcriptomic profiling is insightful to the cellular composition and regional identity of the minibrain. Further, we characterize the transcriptomic changes associated with the dose-time neurotoxic response of minibrain upon exposure to TMT. The distinct gene expression changes and molecular candidates identified with our pipeline provides insight to map the key events involved in the adverse outcome pathway of TMT associated neurotoxicity. We identify processes such as endoplasmic reticulum stress, dysregulation of synaptic genes and downregulation of neuron-morphology associated genes upon exposure to TMT. In response to TMT, we identify activation of an early response homeostatic mechanism in minibrain and an interplay of STAT pathways correlating with the dose severity. In this study, we present a neuro-toxicogenomic assay that demonstrates the power of a low-cost transcriptomic screening to study chemical induced neurotoxicity.