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Establishing preclinical proof-of-concept of gene therapy for Huntington disease
Miniariková, J. ; Juhás, Štefan ; Caron, N. ; Spronck, L. ; Vallés, A. ; De Haan, M. ; Blits, B. ; Ellederová, Zdeňka ; van Deventer, S. ; Petry, H. ; Southwell, A. ; Déglon, N. ; Motlík, Jan ; Konstantinová, P. ; Evers, M.
Huntington disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG trinucleotide repeat expansion in the HTT gene. The translated expanded polyglutamine repeat in the huntingtin protein is known to cause toxic gain-of-function, affecting numerous cellular processes. Our approach involves a new therapeutic modality by developing a single (one-time) treatment for HD based on a gene therapy lowering the expression of the toxic huntingtin using the RNA interference (RNAi) mechanism. Huntingtin lowering is achieved using gene transfer of a cassette encoding an engineered microRNA targeting human HTT, delivered via adeno-associated viral vector serotype 5 (AAV5-miHTT).
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AAV-mediated delivery in large animals
Blits, B. ; De Haan, M. ; Evers, M. ; Spronck, E. A. ; Motlík, Jan ; Bohuslavová, Božena ; Ellederová, Zdeňka ; Lewis, O. T. ; Johnson, D. ; Woolley, M. ; Gill, S. ; van Deventer, S. ; Konstantinová, P. ; Petry, H.
Gene therapy is an attractive option for treatment of neurological diseases. Delivery of the therapeutic gene at the proper location is key for an effective treatment and remains challenging, especially in larger animals. For translation from smaller (rodents) to larger animals, dimensions are different, but also the immune system plays a more prominent role in larger animals. Direct intracranial parenchymal infusions usually result in local transduction of tissue, whereas intrathecal infusions result in a more widespread transduction in the brain. Depending on the indication, the desired expression pattern of the therapeutic gene is to be elucidated and is dictating the route of infusion.
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Monitoring of the development of the Huntington's disease in transgenic minipigs with N-terminal part of human mutated huntingtin: biochemical and motoric changes of F0, F1 and F2 generation
Kučerová, Šárka ; Ellederová, Zdeňka (advisor) ; Klempíř, Jiří (referee)
Huntington's disease (HD) belongs to neurodegenerative disorders. It is a monogenic disease caused by trinucleotic CAG expansion in exon 1 of gene coding protein huntingtin. Even though the cause of HD is known since 1993, the pathophysiology and cure for HD reminds to be found. The animal models are being used for better understanding of HD. The most common animal models for HD are rodents, especially mice but it was also important to create large animal models, which will be more like human. Therefore, TgHD minipig was created in Academic of Science in Liběchov in 2009. This model was created by microinjection of lentiviral vector carrying N-terminal part of human HTT with 124 repetitive CAG in exon 1. This model is viable and in every generation, is part of the offspring transgenic. In this thesis, I specialized to biochemical and behavioral changes of this model. I compared transgenic and wild type siblings. I found that biochemical changes are manifested mostly by increased level of mtHtt fragments in testes and brain. In behavioral part of this thesis I established new methods for testing behavioral changes in this model. The introduced methods showed some changes between wild type and transgenic animals at the tested ages but these changes were not significant due to the low number of...
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Generation of large animal models using genome editing
Dvořáková, Nikola ; Ellederová, Zdeňka (advisor) ; Kašpárek, Petr (referee)
The principle of gene engineering is the intervention to the DNA of the studied organism. After the discovery of the programmed endonucleases, there has been a great expansion of this technique and it also accelerated the possibilities to create large animal models. Until recently, large animal models were very difficult to be generated. These endonucleases include zinc finger nuclease (ZFN), transcription activator like effector nuclease (TALEN) and CRISPR/Cas9. All endonucleases produce locally specific splicing in the targeted segment of the genome. This splicing is most easily corrected by the non-homologous ends joining (NHEJ), so then it is possible to create a so -called knock-out (KO) model. The second type of repair is homologous recombination (HR) using a DNA template with homologous arms. This makes it possible to create a knock-in (KI) model that cannot be created without specific endonucleases in large animal models due to the low natural HR. This work summarizes the history, technique and the use of programmed endonucleases for the creation of large animal models. These models have a great use in biomedicine, mostly in preclinical research, they are also significant in agriculture and even in the environment protection. Key words: large animal model, transgenesis, genome editing,...
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Evaluation of efficacy and bio-distribution of AAV5-miHTT in HD minipig brain
Bohuslavová, Božena ; Juhás, Štefan ; Juhásová, Jana ; Ellederová, Zdeňka ; Motlík, Jan
Healthy minipigs (n=29) were pre-screened for serum AAV5 neutralizing antibodies (NABs) in serum by uniQure. Conclusions: Intrastriatal/intrathalamic bilateral application of AAV5-CAG-miHtt(3e13/1e13gctotal) or PBS/Sucrose (54μl/216μl) similarly to AA5-CAG-GFP didn´t cause any neurological deficit in transgenic as well as wild type animals. The body weight increased in all animals 84 days after AAV5-CAG-miHtt/PBS-Sucroseintrastriatal/intrathalamic delivery with two exceptions TGanimal L616 (AAV5-CAG-miHtt1e 13g ctotal) and WTanimal L485 (AAV5-CAG-miHtt3e13gc total). The TG boar N176 from group VII (PBS/Sucrose) died during narcosis 56 days after IP/IT application), shortly after CSF and blood collection.The boar breathed heavily and intermittently, then the heart stopped beat and resuscitation failed. We immediately flushed them by 20 L of PBS with heparin and collect all tissues. All animals had normal food consumption. Inflammatory proces in AAV5-CAG-miHtt (1e13 gc total) seems to be similar to PBS/Sucrose injected animals accompanied with no detectable histological pathologies.
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Phenotypic Analyses of the HD transgenic Minipig Model
Motlík, Jan ; Ellederová, Zdeňka
The transgenic model of Huntington’s disease in minipig (TgHD) was created in 2009 and information coding the sequence of N-terminal part of human mutated huntingtin was transferred to subsequent generations from both female and male sides. In each litter, transgenic (TgHD) and wild-type (WT) piglets were born in approximately equal ratio. At present, the Laboratory of Cell Regeneration and Plasticity keeps sets of animals in F2 and F3 generations with identical genetic background and bred in identical conditions of feeding and housing. The present research project was focused on a complex of non-invasive and invasive approaches to WT and TgHD minipigs to achieve the entire phenotypic analysis of HD progression in this large animal model.
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