RNA-seq analysis of the cerebellum of SCA7 mice treated with AAV expressing shRNA targeting Atxn7

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 (SCA7) belonging to a family of autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxias (ADCAs) is pathomechanistically associated with the group of polyglutamine expansion disorders which include SCA 1-3, 6, 7 and 17, and Huntington’s disease. These rare diseases share a common mutational feature that is the expansion of CAG repeat sequence in disease causing genes. These mutations lead to neuronal accumulation of expanded polyglutamine proteins and selective patterns of neurodegeneration. SCA7 is caused by a polyglutamine expansion in ATAXIN-7 (ATXN7), a subcomponent of co-activatory transcriptional complex SAGA and primarily affects the cerebellum, retina and brainstem. Currently, only treatments alleviating symptoms are available to patients. Allele-selective lowering of mutant polyQ proteins promises to have high therapeutic outcomes and safety profiles. In this study, PhP.eB adeno-associated virus (AAV PhP.eB) was used to deliver several shRNAs targeting expanded CAG repeats that were tested for their safety and efficacy to lower the mATXN7 level in the brain. The SCA7140Q/5Q knock-in mice that expresses a mutated Atxn7 allele harboring an expansion of 140 CAG triplet repeats and the wild type mouse allele with 5 CAGs were used in the study. Our SCA7 140Q/5Q KI mouse model remarkably recapitulates cardinal features of SCA7 and bears the potential for pre-clinical trials (Niewiadomska-Cimicka et al., J.Neurosci., 2021). We showed that systemic injection of the AAV-shA4, the most allele-selective and safe reagent of our collection, results in improvement of motor phenotypes as indicated in open field test, and partial correction of transcriptional alterations in the cerebellum of SCA7 mice.