There is an unmet need to develop and test treatments for rare lysosomal disease (LD). Most LDs are present in childhood and do not currently have approved therapies. Rare diseases individually are uncommon but taken together account for a population prevalence of 3.5-5.9% worldwide. Due to their rarity, it often takes significant time and effort to diagnose rare diseases. New diagnostic tools, especially for early detection, will offer an advantage in avoiding this diagnostic odyssey. This dissertation is focused on investigating novel diagnostic and treatment methods in vitro for two neurodegenerative LDs: Gaucher disease (GD) and mucopolysaccharidosis IIIB (MPS IIIB). Mutations in NAGLU and GBA1, the genes that encode for lysosomal hydrolases required for degradation of heparan sulfate and glucocerebrosides, lead to the observed pathogenesis in MPS IIIB and GD, respectively. Since many LDs, including MPS IIIB and some forms of GD, are neurodegenerative, cell and gene-based therapeutic strategies are of significant interest. Therapeutics that offer some symptom mitigation in other LDs, such as enzyme replacement or substrate reduction therapies, do not offer appreciable disease mitigation in MPS IIIB or neurodegenerative GD.
Here, a novel compound heterozygous mutation, NAGLUY140C/R297X, that results in approximately 50% residual NAGLU protein and 0.6% NAGLU enzyme activity is reported in NAGLU. Furthermore, a RFLP and site-directed mutagenesis strategy was developed to identify the presence of the relatively common p.R297X mutation in patient cell samples, in addition to two other novel molecular assays for the detection of the p.E153K mutation in NAGLU and p.N370S mutation in GBA1. MPS IIIB and GD human skin fibroblasts were reprogrammed to iPSCs using non-integrating Sendai viral vectors with a reprogramming efficiency of 0.2% and 0.3%, respectively. Resulting iPS cell lines were confirmed as being pluripotent through a barrage of analyses for markers of pluripotency and differentiation. Intriguingly, early passage MPS IIIB iPSCs were found to exhibit increased cell death and spontaneous differentiation to embryoid body-like structures, which was hypothesized to be caused by fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2) sequestration or degradation due to inherent heparan sulfate dysregulation. Supplemental FGF2 (100 ng/mL) was found to significantly increase confluency of MPS IIIB iPSCs after 48 hours (n = 5, p ≤ 0.05) and persisting to 96 hrs (n = 5, p ≤ 0.05), thus providing evidence for an important role of FGF2-heparan sulfate interactions in the maintenance of stem cell pluripotency. These findings highlight the importance of considering inherent disease pathology when developing disease models.
Three genome editing strategies, CRISPR-Cas9, base and prime editing, are addressed throughout this dissertation. Genome editing outcomes in NAGLU and GBA1, as well as a control gene, HPRT1, are reported in HEK293 cells, human skin fibroblasts, and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Although CRISPR-HDR failed to yield mutation correction, base editing of the common p.N370S (c.1226 A>G) in GD skin fibroblasts using with 42% efficiency is reported. Base editing of HPRT1 in HEK293 cells with an overall editing efficiency of 6 ± 0.5% (n = 3), but interestingly, when base editing at the centered nucleotide was analyzed, the editing efficiency increases to 27 ± 4.3% (n = 3). These findings align with other reports of a centered nucleotide preference for base editors and will help direct genome editing strategies in the future. This dissertation describes the first genome editing in NAGLU, and the first base editing in GBA1, and underscores the importance of optimizing genome editing strategies when targeting disease-causing mutations in patient-derived cells. The findings reported here will direct future genome editing strategies for developing cell and gene-based therapies for MPS IIIB and GD. / Graduate / 2021-12-15
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/12493 |
| Date | 22 December 2020 |
| Creators | Christensen, Chloe L. |
| Contributors | Choy, Francis Y. M. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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