Browsing by Author "Cui, Jun"

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Defective AMPA-mediated synaptic transmission and morphology in human neurons with hemizygous SHANK3 deletion engrafted in mouse prefrontal cortex
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2021-02) Chiola, Simone; Napan, Kandy L.; Wang, Yueqi; Lazarenko, Roman M.; Armstrong, Celeste J.; Cui, Jun; Shcheglovitov, Aleksandr
Genetic abnormalities in synaptic proteins are common in individuals with autism; however, our understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms disrupted by these abnormalities is limited. SHANK3 is a postsynaptic scaffolding protein of excitatory synapses that has been found mutated or deleted in most patients with 22q13 deletion syndrome and about 2% of individuals with idiopathic autism and intellectual disability. Here, we generated CRISPR/Cas9-engineered human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) with complete hemizygous SHANK3 deletion (SHANK3 +/–), which is the most common genetic abnormality in patients, and investigated the synaptic and morphological properties of SHANK3-deficient PSC-derived cortical neurons engrafted in the mouse prefrontal cortex. We show that human PSC-derived neurons integrate into the mouse cortex by acquiring appropriate cortical layer identities and by receiving and sending anatomical projections from/to multiple different brain regions. We also demonstrate that SHANK3-deficient human neurons have reduced AMPA-, but not NMDA- or GABA-mediated synaptic transmission and exhibit impaired dendritic arbors and spines, as compared to isogenic control neurons co-engrafted in the same brain region. Together, this study reveals specific synaptic and morphological deficits caused by SHANK3 hemizygosity in human cortical neurons at different developmental stages under physiological conditions and validates the use of co-engrafted control and mutant human neurons as a new platform for studying connectivity deficits in genetic neurodevelopmental disorders associated with autism.
The Drosophila prage Gene, Required for Maternal Transcript Destabilization in Embryos, Encodes a Predicted RNA Exonuclease
(2016-06) Cui, Jun; Lai, Yun Wei; Sartain, Caroline V.; Zuckerman, Rebecca M.; Wolfner, Mariana F.
Egg activation, the transition of mature oocytes into developing embryos, is critical for the initiation of embryogenesis. This process is characterized by resumption of meiosis, changes in the egg's coverings and by alterations in the transcriptome and proteome of the egg; all of these occur in the absence of new transcription. Activation of the egg is prompted by ionic changes in the cytoplasm (usually a rise in cytosolic calcium levels) that are triggered by fertilization in some animals and by mechanosensitive cues in others. The egg's transcriptome is dramatically altered during the process, including by the removal of many maternal mRNAs that are not needed for embryogenesis. However, the mechanisms and regulators of this selective RNA degradation are not yet fully known. Forward genetic approaches in Drosophila have identified maternal-effect genes whose mutations prevent the transcriptome changes. One of these genes, prage (prg), was identified by Tadros et al. in a screen for mutants that fail to destabilize maternal transcripts. We identified the molecular nature of the prg gene through a combination of deficiency mapping, complementation analysis, and DNA sequencing of both extant prg mutant alleles. We find that prg encodes a ubiquitously expressed predicted exonuclease, consistent with its role in maternal mRNA destabilization during egg activation.
Modeling human telencephalic development and autism-associated SHANK3 deficiency using organoids generated from single neural rosettes
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2022-10) Wang, Yueqi; Chiola, Simone; Yang, Guang; Russell, Chad; Armstrong, Celeste J.; Wu, Yuanyuan; Spampanato, Jay; Tarboton, Paisley; Arif Ullah, H. M.; Edgar, Nicolas U.; Chang, Amelia N.; Harmin, David A.; Bocchi, Vittoria Dickinson; Vezzoli, Elena; Besusso, Dario; Cui, Jun; Cattaneo, Elena; Kubanek, Jan; Shcheglovitov, Aleksandr
Human telencephalon is an evolutionarily advanced brain structure associated with many uniquely human behaviors and disorders. However, cell lineages and molecular pathways implicated in human telencephalic development remain largely unknown. We produce human telencephalic organoids from stem cell-derived single neural rosettes and investigate telencephalic development under normal and pathological conditions. We show that single neural rosette-derived organoids contain pallial and subpallial neural progenitors, excitatory and inhibitory neurons, as well as macroglial and periendothelial cells, and exhibit predictable organization and cytoarchitecture. We comprehensively characterize the properties of neurons in SNR-derived organoids and identify transcriptional programs associated with the specification of excitatory and inhibitory neural lineages from a common pool of NPs early in telencephalic development. We also demonstrate that neurons in organoids with a hemizygous deletion of an autism- and intellectual disability-associated gene SHANK3 exhibit intrinsic and excitatory synaptic deficits and impaired expression of several clustered protocadherins. Collectively, this study validates SNR-derived organoids as a reliable model for studying human telencephalic cortico-striatal development and identifies intrinsic, synaptic, and clustered protocadherin expression deficits in human telencephalic tissue with SHANK3 hemizygosity.
A PAX5-OCT4-PRDM1 developmental switch specifies human primordial germ cells
(2018-04) Fang, Fang; Angulo, Benjamin; Xia, Ninuo; Sukhwani, Meena; Wang, Zhengyuan; Carey, Charles C.; Mazurie, Aurélien J.; Cui, Jun; Wilkinson, Royce A.; Wiedenheft, Blake A.; Irie, Naoko; Surani, M. Azim; Orwig, Kyle E.; Reijo Pera, Renee A.
Dysregulation of genetic pathways during human germ cell development leads to infertility. Here, we analysed bona fide human primordial germ cells (hPGCs) to probe the developmental genetics of human germ cell specification and differentiation. We examined the distribution of OCT4 occupancy in hPGCs relative to human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). We demonstrated that development, from pluripotent stem cells to germ cells, is driven by switching partners with OCT4 from SOX2 to PAX5 and PRDM1. Gain- and loss-of-function studies revealed that PAX5 encodes a critical regulator of hPGC development. Moreover, an epistasis analysis indicated that PAX5 acts upstream of OCT4 and PRDM1. The PAX5-OCT4-PRDM1 proteins form a core transcriptional network that activates germline and represses somatic programmes during human germ cell differentiation. These findings illustrate the power of combined genome editing, cell differentiation and engraftment for probing human developmental genetics that have historically been difficult to study.
Quantification of dopaminergic neuron differentiation and neurotoxicity via a genetic reporter
(2016-04) Cui, Jun; Rotstein, Megan; Bennett, Theo; Zhangm, Pengbo; Xia, Ninuo; Reijo Pera, Renee A.
Human pluripotent stem cells provide a powerful human-genome based system for modeling human diseases in vitro and for potentially identifying novel treatments. Directed differentiation of pluripotent stem cells produces many specific cell types including dopaminergic neurons. Here, we generated a genetic reporter assay in pluripotent stem cells using newly-developed genome editing technologies in order to monitor differentiation efficiency and compare dopaminergic neuron survival under different conditions. We show that insertion of a luciferase reporter gene into the endogenous tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) locus enables rapid and easy quantification of dopaminergic neurons in cell culture throughout the entire differentiation process. Moreover, we demonstrate that the cellular assay is effective in assessing neuron response to different cytotoxic chemicals and is able to be scaled for high throughput applications. These results suggest that stem cell-derived terminal cell types can provide an alternative to traditional immortal cell lines or primary cells as a quantitative cellular model for toxin evaluation and drug discovery.