Transcriptomic characterization of in vitro human iPSC-derived motor neuron systems for the exploration of cell autonomous mechanisms and modifiers of TDP-43 perturbation associated neurotoxicity

Transactive Response DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) is a multifunctional nuclear protein ubiquitously expressed in all tissues. Although it is primarily nuclear, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients frequently present with cytoplasmic aggregates of TDP-43 in motor neurons on post-mortem examination. Although only about 5% of all ALS patients have a TARDBP mutation (Ghasemi and Brown 2018; Ingre et al. 2015), which is known to cause these insoluble cytoplasmic aggregates, 97% of ALS patients will develop cytoplasmic, insoluble TDP-43 aggregates regardless of whether they have a mutation in TARDBP or not (Ling et al. 2013). Overexpression of wild-type TDP-43 has previously been shown to be a valid model of inducing neurotoxicity as well as a limited amount of cytoplasmic re-localization and aggregation characteristic of ALS (Elden et al. 2010; Wils et al. 2010). In the search for modifiers of toxicity as conferred by TDP-43 overexpression in these models, knockout of Ataxin-2 (ATXN2) was proposed as a protective intervention in the context of TDP-43 perturbation in non-human model systems (Elden et al. 2010, Becker et al. 2017). This promising finding had not previously been validated in a human motor neuron system, nor had a thorough investigation been conducted to determine the mechanism of neuroprotection that ATXN2 knockout employs to drive the therapeutic effect. This sequencing study examines both ATXN2 intact and ATXN2 knockout motor neurons in the context of TDP-43 perturbation to explore global transcriptomic changes that arise from these changes in cellular state that are associated with progression of ALS (ATXN2 intact) and what pathways could be implicated in protection from ALS-associated neurodegeneration (ATXN2 Knockout).