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Identifying the Effects of a Human Dynein Mutation on GFP-Rab7 Axonal Transport in Embryonic Mouse Neurons

The first dynein mutation found in humans that caused disease was a cytoplasmic dynein 1 heavy chain (DYNC1H1 in humans) p.His306Arg mutation, first described by Weedon et al. in 2011. This mutation caused Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) subtype 2O. CMT has a prevalence of approximately 1 in 2500 people, making it the most common hereditary neuromuscular disorder. Cytoplasmic dynein 1 is used by eukaryotic cells for minus-end directed microtubule-based transport of cargo. One such cargo is Rab7, a late endosomal marker. The purpose of this study is to identify the effects of this mutation on the transport of GFP-tagged Rab7 cargo in neurons from wild type (HH), heterozygous mutant (HR), and homozygous mutant (RR) mice harboring a DYNC1HI His306Arg mutation. Mouse embryos were euthanized, dissected to collect the hippocampal and cortical brain tissues, and these tissues were digested to isolate neurons. Nucleofection was used to introduce the exogenous GFP-Rab7 gene construct. These neurons were plated and imaged at 10 days in vitro using wide-field epifluorescence microscopy to generate image stacks of fluorescent GFP-Rab7 vesicles. Kymograph analysis was performed on the image stacks using MetaMorph software to measure several characteristics of movement. Statistical analysis of the data from each of the three genotypes shows there is no significant difference in Rab-7 transport between the three genotypes.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:honorstheses-1200
Date01 January 2017
CreatorsWilson, Natalie E
PublisherSTARS
Source SetsUniversity of Central Florida
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceHonors Undergraduate Theses

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