Glutamate is the primary excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system. Extracellular glutamate concentrations are tightly regulated to avoid over-stimulation of glutamate receptors, which leads to a cascade of deleterious processes collectively known as excitotoxicity. Excitotoxicity is common to several neurodegenerative disorders and CNS injuries, including stroke and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The projects described in this thesis were designed to uncover novel protective pathways in excitotoxic neurodegeneration. Excessive activation of the DNA repair enzyme, poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1), is a convergence point for neuron death signaling in excitotoxic pathways. In AD, the peptide amyloid-β1-42 (Aβ1-42) is aberrantly produced, leading to excitotoxic neuron death in vitro. To investigate links between Aβ1-42 and PARP, we treated cultured cortical neurons with Aβ1-42 and determined whether PARP-1 contributes to neuron death. Increased neuron death was observed after Aβ1-42 exposure. A non-selective PARP-1/2 inhibitor significantly reduced Aβ1-42-induced death while elimination of PARP-1 alone was not neuroprotective. This suggests that PARP-2 or combined effects of PARP-1 and PARP-2 are required for Aβ1-42-induced neuron death. A hallmark of PARP over-activation is depletion of intracellular NAD+ and ATP levels, yet nearly all studies examining adenine nucleotide levels use separate biochemical samples to measure nucleotides individually. We developed two HPLC methods for simultaneous separation of NAD+, ATP, ADP and AMP. We determined that PARP-1 activation in astrocytes leads to near complete NAD+ depletion, followed by partial loss of ATP pools and total adenine nucleotide pools. Finally, we hypothesized that conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a naturally occurring polyunsaturated fatty acid, is capable of enhancing neuron survival after an excitotoxic insult. Cultured cortical neurons were exposed to glutamate in the presence and absence of CLA. CLA levels likely achievable in human plasma and brain tissue during dietary supplementation regimens, protected neurons against glutamate excitotoxicity when given during or up to five hours after glutamate exposure. Several markers of mitochondrial damage and intrinsic apoptosis were examined. CLA stabilized mitochondrial membrane potential and permeability, shedding light on the mechanism of CLA neuroprotection. Overall, our research suggests a role for PARP in Aβ1-42 toxicity and identifies a novel role for CLA in neuroprotection following excitotoxicity.

abstract: Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) exhibit a significantly higher incidence of unprovoked seizures compared to age-matched non-AD controls, and animal models of AD (i.e., transgenic human amyloid precursor protein, hAPP mice) display neural hyper-excitation and epileptic seizures. Hyperexcitation is particularly important because it contributes to the high incidence of epilepsy in AD patients as well as AD-related synaptic deficits and neurodegeneration. Given that there is significant amyloid-β (Aβ) accumulation and deposition in AD brain, Aβ exposure ultimately may be responsible for neural hyper-excitation in both AD patients and animal models. Emerging evidence indicates that α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (α7-nAChR) are involved in AD pathology, because synaptic impairment and learning and memory deficits in a hAPPα7-/- mouse model are decreased by nAChR α7 subunit gene deletion. Given that Aβ potently modulates α7-nAChR function, that α7-nAChR expression is significantly enhanced in both AD patients and animal models, and that α7-nAChR play an important role in regulating neuronal excitability, it is reasonable that α7-nAChRs may contribute to Aβ-induced neural hyperexcitation. We hypothesize that increased α7-nAChR expression and function as a consequence of Aβ exposure is important in Aβ-induced neural hyperexcitation. In this project, we found that exposure of Aβ aggregates at a nanomolar range induces neuronal hyperexcitation and toxicity via an upregulation of α7-nAChR in cultured hippocampus pyramidal neurons. Aβ up-regulates α7-nAChRs function and expression through a post translational mechanism. α7-nAChR up-regulation occurs prior to Aβ-induced neuronal hyperexcitation and toxicity. Moreover, inhibition of α7-nAChR or deletion of α7-nAChR prevented Aβ induced neuronal hyperexcitation and toxicity, which suggests that α7-nAChRs are required for Aβ induced neuronal hyperexcitation and toxicity. These results reveal a profound role for α7-nAChR in mediating Aβ-induced neuronal hyperexcitation and toxicity and predict that Aβ-induced up-regulation of α7-nAChR could be an early and critical event in AD etiopathogenesis. Drugs targeting α7-nAChR or seizure activity could be viable therapies for AD treatment. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Neuroscience 2011

Ca2+ is an important second messenger which modulates a variety of signalling pathways in both excitable and non-excitable cells. In the CNS, Ca2+ plays an important role in neurons both physiologically and pathologically. Ca2+ influx following synaptic activity, is important in development, plasticity, redox balance, as well as in neuroprotection, largely through activation of pro-survival pathways downstream of synaptic NMDAR activation, including upregulation of antioxidant defences. However, excessive Ca2+ influx in neurons leads to neuronal damage and excitotoxicity, in which mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake through the mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter (Mcu) resulting in mitochondrial dysfunction is a key player. Excitotoxicity occurs due to glutamate efflux from astrocytes following stroke, traumatic brain injury and in chronic neurodegenerative diseases, leading to excessive neuronal NMDAR activation and triggering of its downstream pro-death pathways. This thesis focuses on understanding the pro-survival and pro-death effects of signalling pathways activated by Ca2+ in neurons, as well as the potential effect of neuronal synaptic activity on influencing neuroprotective gene transcription in astrocytes. I investigated the role of AMPK, a master regulator of metabolism, in NMDA excitotoxicity in cortical neurons as a potential downstream effector of Mcu-dependent excitotoxic death; and found the deletion of AMPKα1/2 to be neuroprotective against NMDA-mediated excitotoxicity, however I found AMPK activation to be independent of Mcu. I also investigated the expression pattern of Mcu and other mitochondrial calcium regulatory genes (MCRGs), and found MCRGs to be differentially expressed in different neural cells (primary neurons vs astrocytes), and neuronal subtypes (CA1 vs CA3 region of the hippocampus), suggesting differing dependence on the various MCRGs in mitochondrial Ca2+ handling in these cell types. A better functional understanding of these genes will allow for investigation of their importance in mitochondrial Ca2+ handling, including their potential role in excitotoxicity. I next investigated the neuroprotective effects of synaptic activity induced Ca2+ influx, focusing on antioxidant target genes of Nrf2, a transcription factor and major regulator of antioxidant genes. I found that unlike astrocytes, neurons express very low levels of Nrf2. However, synaptic activity increased the expression of several Nrf2 target genes in neurons, independently of astrocytes and Nrf2. Additionally, I found no effect of synaptic activity on increasing Nrf2 protein levels, despite previous reports in literature of Nrf2 pathway activation following synaptic activity. Finally, using RNA-seq I identified a list of genes strongly upregulated by a known Nrf2 activator in astrocytes, and found no evidence that neuronal activity triggers expression of these genes independently of neurons, providing further evidence that neuronal activity does not activate the Nrf2 pathway in astrocytes. This suggests that synaptic activity via pathways activated by Ca2+ signalling provides neurons with cell-autonomous antioxidant defences, independently of Nrf2; thus providing a distinct pathway for antioxidant defences in neurons from the Nrf2 pathway, which is activated in astrocytes providing neurons with non-cell autonomous antioxidant support. These results give us further insight into the mechanisms that underlie synaptic and non-synaptic Ca2+ signalling pathways mediating neuronal survival and death, which could help in identifying therapeutic targets to combat excitotoxicity and oxidative stress in various neurological diseases.

NMDARs are ligand-gated cation channels which are activated by the neurotransmitter glutamate. NMDARs are essential in coupling electrical activity to biochemical signalling as a consequence of their high Ca2+ permeability. This Ca2+ influx acts as a secondary messenger to mediate neurodevelopment, synaptic plasticity, neuroprotection and neurodegeneration. The biological outcome of NMDAR activation is determined by a complicated interrelationship between the concentration of Ca2+ influx, NMDAR location (synaptic vs. extrasynaptic) as well as the subtype of the GluN2 subunit. Despite the recognition that NMDAR mediated physiology is multifaceted, tools used to study subunit and location dependent signalling are poorly characterized and in other cases, non-existent. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to address this issue. Firstly, I assessed the current pharmacological approach used to selectively activate extrasynaptic NMDARs. Here, synaptic NMDARs are first blocked with MK-801 during phasic activation and then extrasynaptic NMDARs are tonically activated. This approach relies on the continual irreversible blockade of synaptic NMDARs by MK-801 yet contrary to the current dogma, I demonstrate this blockade is unstable during tonic agonist exposure and even more so when physiologically relevant concentrations of Mg2+ are present. This confines a temporal limit in which selective activation of extrasynaptic NMDARs can occur with significant consequences for studying synaptic vs. extrasynaptic NMDAR signalling. Dissecting subunit-dependent signalling mediated by the two major GluN2 subunits in the forebrain, GluN2A and GluN2B, has been advanced significantly by selective GluN2B antagonism yet a reciprocal GluN2A selective antagonist has been lacking. Utilizing novel GluN2A-specific antagonists, I demonstrate a developmental upregulation of GluN2A-mediated NMDA currents which concurrently dilutes the contribution of GluN2B-mediated currents. Moreover, I tested the hypothesis that the Cterminus of GluN2A and GluN2B are essential in controlling the developmental switch of GluN2 subunits utilizing knock-in mice whereby the C-terminus of GluN2A is replaced with that of GluN2B. Surprisingly, the exchange of the C-terminus does not impede the developmental switch in subunits nor the proportion of NMDARs at synaptic vs extrasynaptic sites. However, replacing the C-terminus of GluN2A with that of GluN2B induces a greater neuronal vulnerability to NMDA-dependent excitotoxicity. Collectively, this work enhances our understanding of the complex physiology mediated by the NMDAR by determining how pharmacological tools are best utilized to study the roles of NMDAR location and subunit composition in addition to revealing the importance of the GluN2 C-terminus in development and excitotoxicity.

No description available.

Our laboratory has invented a series of oxime acetylcholinesterase (AChE) reactivators (US Patent 9,227,937) that enter the brain, reduce time to cessation of seizure-like activities, and prevent organophosphorus compound (OP) neuropathology, not seen with the current U.S. approved AChE reactivator, pralidoxime (2-PAM). Thus, 2-PAM fails to protect the brain against damage and long-term cognitive and behavioral deficits seen in humans after OP exposure. However, the mechanisms by which these novel oximes provide central neuroprotection through preservation of neuronal cell structures from damage in a rat model are not fully understood by AChE reactivation alone. This dissertation investigated neurotoxic mechanisms of NIMP as potential targets for additional direct and indirect neuroprotection by our lead in vivo AChE reactivator, Oxime 20. Male Sprague Dawley rats exposed to NIMP experienced neurotoxic effects in areas critical to OP-induced seizure generation (e.g., hippocampus and piriform cortex) such as the inhibition of multiple serine hydrolases (i.e., fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL)), necrotic cell death evident by increased necrotic receptor-interacting serine/threonine-protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) levels and no apoptotic caspase-3 activity, and increased levels of neuroinflammation via elevated levels of pro-inflammatory oxylipins 4 days post lethal exposure. However, due to the lack of statistical significance, NIMP exposure did not definitively affect the subcellular location of either phosphorylated excitatory N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor or inhibitory γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor subunits. Results suggested that Oxime 20 therapy provided neuroprotection after NIMP exposure, such as limited reactivation of other serine hydrolase targets, significantly decreased RIPK1 levels (i.e., necrotic environment) in the hippocampus, and significantly decreased inflammatory oxylipins 4 days post-NIMP exposure. Thus, reducing OP-induced neuroinflammation might be the main contributor to the neuroprotection (i.e., neuronal cell structure preservation) previously observed in our laboratory.

No description available.

No description available.

<p>Lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) are devastating neurological disorders caused by mutations in lysosomal hydrolases that result in accumulations of hydrolase substrates. Tay-Sachs disease (TSD) is an LSD that specifically results in the accumulation of GM2 gangliosides causing the activation of inflammatory signaling pathways, and leading to microglial activation and apoptotic cell death. The detailed mechanisms through which cell death occurs have not been completely elucidated, however, excitotoxicity is thought to play a major role. Here, we investigated the role of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF- 1α) and its effector microRNA, miR-210, and the impact they have on the expression of important molecules involved in excitotoxicity, namely neuronal pentraxin 1 (NPTX1) and potassium channel KCNK2 (KCNK2). We discovered that TSD neuroglia are inefficient at stabilizing HIF-1α in hypoxic conditions. Furthermore, miR-210 expression is significantly higher in TSD neuroglia compared to normal neuroglia at baseline and during hypoxia. In addition, TSD neuroglia expressed <em>NPTX1</em>, <em>NPTX2 </em>and <em>KCNK2 </em>at higher levels, and neuronal pentraxin receptor at lower levels than normal neuroglia, implicating excitotoxicity in disease pathogenesis. We also confirmed that miR-210 binds to the 3’ UTR of <em>NPTX1 </em>to repress its expression in TSD neuroglia. The presence of reverse hypoxia response elements in the promoter of KCNK2 and the repression of <em>KCNK2 </em>expression by HIF-1α stabilization suggest that KCNK2 is directly regulated by HIF-1α. Moreover, the glucosylceramide synthase inhibitor, NBDNJ, which is used to reduce ganglioside synthesis, caused expression of <em>NPTX1 </em>to decrease but <em>KCNK2 </em>expression to increase, indicating this drug can modify multiple parameters of disease. This study identifies major gene expression changes between normal and TSD neuroglia that affect the excitability and therefore the viability of TSD cells. This information provides new insight into the mechanisms of neurodegeneration experienced by TSD neuroglia.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

<p> The objective is to investigate the molecular mechanisms leading to neurodegeneration in Tay Sachs disease, a lysosomal storage disorder caused by a deficiency in the enzyme hexosaminidase A. This was accomplished using microarray analysis of normal and Tay Sachs neuroglia. Microarray data analysis was performed using Onto Express, PANTHER software, and cluster analysis. The expression levels of selected genes were validated using Real Time PCR. To establish a physiological relationship between GM2 accumulation and the expression of these genes, their expression was assessed after treatment with an inhibitor of ganglioside synthesis, nbutyldeoxynojirimycin (NBDNJ). Neuronal pentraxin 1 (NPTX1), potassium channel, subfamily K, member 2 (KCNK2), and prostaglandin synthase 1 (PTGS 1) were found to be upregulated in Tay Sachs neuroglia while heme oxygenase (HMOX1) was downregulated. The mRNA levels ofNPTX1, KCNK2, PTGS1, and HMOX1 all reverted to normal levels in response to ganglioside synthesis inhibitor. Pentraxin RNA levels were also reduced in response to sialidase overexpression, another method of GM2 reduction. Pentraxin protein levels were also increased in Tay Sachs cells in response to u-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4- propionic acid (AMPA), and were attenuated upon treatment with either NBDNJ or AMPA antagonist 2,3-dihydroxy-6-nitro-7- sulfamoyl-benzo [f]quinoxaline-2,3-dione (NBQX). Strong colocalization was seen between NPTX1 and the AMPA receptor as well as the glutamate transporter EAACI. AMP A receptor function was also enhanced as illustrated by an increase in calcium influx upon stimulation. This stimulation also resulted in increased apoptosis during AMPA receptor stimulation. In this study, our genetic profiling experiment led to the identification of NPTXl as a marker of pathogenesis in Tay Sachs Cells. The role of NPTXl in excitotoxicity implicates the latter in disease mechanism associated with Tay Sachs disease. Furthermore, this study provides evidence that TSD cells undergo programmed cell death in response to increased intracellular calcium as a result of increased glutamate receptor stimulation. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)